Heart To Hearts
by SpellCleaver
Summary: A series of oneshots inspired by the events of A Court of Wings and Ruin. Things I was curious about; AUs and plot bunnies that came to mind; headcanons that are neither confirmed nor denied. Spoilers for ACOWAR. Complete.
1. Prince of Merchants

**After I finished ACOWAR, I had so many feels that I came up with a list of oneshots for me to write, some AU and some headcanons, and this is the first one I wrote.**

 **I was so upset that the Archeron father went to get Queen Vassa and rally an army to save his daughters, only to die, that I wrote this. I understand why what happened in canon happened, but I feel like this is how it could've gone.**

 **Disclaimer: I down own the ACOTAR franchise; it belongs to Sarah J. Maas.**

* * *

 _Prince of Merchants_

My heart was a piston in my chest. I could feel every inch of the blood covering me, like a second skin, but it was nowhere near as revolting as the feeling that'd sunk deep into my gut. The feeling only intensified as I paced around the war camp, specifically one of the healers' tents, and had no control over how my eyes kept studying three of the ships docked in the harbour.

The _Feyre_ , the _Nesta_ and the _Elain_.

My father's ships. That he'd named after us.

And _Nesta_ being his flagship, named for the daughter who'd most hated him, whom he'd failed the worst.

The nauseous sensation in my stomach roiled again, and I almost vomited.

In this tent, Thesan had promised to try - _try_ \- to save my father's life. To see if the High Lord of the Dawn Court, who'd given me such healing power in my blood, could fix a neck that had been snapped in two by a King of Hybern. He'd gone in there shortly after the battle was won, and hadn't emerged yet. Madja had come in the time since then, and all she'd done was assess the situation before ducking into the tent, and not coming out either.

It did nothing to help my mood.

Rhys had tried to cheer me up, but he realised pretty quickly that I was not in the mood for his flirting, and eventually just resorted to sitting with me. When I paced top hard, he took my hand and said, "Your pacing won't help Thesan heal him. If anything, it's just distracting to hear it whilst he's trying to save your father's life. Come away, and sleep. You need it, after shouting all the High Lords into resurrecting me."

I couldn't even smile at that. But I _was_ tired. I was absolutely exhausted. And I needed to talk to Queen Vassa, and the High Lords, and Miryam and Drakon, and all the other official emissaries and whatnot it was part of my job to talk to. There was so much I needed to do, so much I needed to be ready and invigorated for.

I was High Lady of the Night Court. I no longer had the privilege of worrying over my loved ones every minute of every day.

So I just nodded, and let my eyelids droop for the first time in hours. Days, possibly.

Rhys smiled at me, and this was the first smile in a while that had actually reached his eyes. "Sleep, Feyre," he said quietly. "I'll wake you if anything happens."

I was already half-asleep when he said that, so a) I couldn't process that by "anything happening" he was referring to my father dying, nor b) he had no plans of sleeping himself, when the odds were that he was more overexerted than I was. So I fell asleep before arguing with him about it, but mentally stored it away to argue with him about later.

* * *

I was woken by a hand on my shoulder a few hours later, judging by the pink light coming from the east. A dream-induced thought chased its way into my head - _would Thesan still be tired when it's the dawn, and he's in his natural element?_ \- before I let clarity of thought clear it away, and pried my eyes open.

The hand on my shoulder wasn't Rhys's, as I'd initially thought, but slightly smaller, slimmer, golden skin stretched over ligaments and muscles. Mor's gold-framed head blinked at me in the morning light. "Come on," she said in a hushed tone. "Azriel and Cassian went to wake your sisters. Your father's alive and awake." A pause. "And asking for you."

I bolted off the bedroll without another word, and practically ripped the tent flap open. A loud snore made me start; Rhys was curled up in the corner of the tent, fast asleep, and didn't so much as stir at the commotion both inside and outside. I didn't know which warring emotion was stronger: the fondness at seeing him so at peace in sleep, or the guilt that he was so exhausted he couldn't stay awake.

But the dominant one was definitely the blooming hope that would clench and unclench my stomach periodically with every step I took. My father. . . Alive. Healing. _Willing to fight for us again_.

I could feel that Mor was trying to hang back, and give me my privacy, but also lead me to where my father was as well. Soon enough though, I picked up his scent, like an errand thread on a drift of wind, and could find my own way there.

He was sitting on a chair in one of the war tents, exchanging wary looks with a few of the High Lords there. But I had no eyes for them, only for the man who'd raised me, who'd dragged me along behind him in his wave of destruction, who'd done nothing whilst I dug us - _all_ of us - out of it. The man who'd come to save all of our asses when all seemed lost.

"Father."

And he was only looking at me too.

My chest was so tight I thought it might implode.

"Feyre." He said it questioningly, like he wasn't sure I was real. As if I might just be another faerie glamour, like the one he'd laboured under when he'd thought I was staying with a fictional Aunt Ripleigh. " _Feyre_."

That was when my face crumpled, and sobs shoved themselves up my throat. My eyes were wet as I took the final step forward and collapsed to my knees in front of him. " _Papa_ ," was the only thing I could choke out before I dropped my face into his lap and wept.

He stroked my hair awkwardly, like he wasn't quite sure what to do with himself. It was understandable. I hadn't cried in front of him in years.

I hadn't called him "Papa" in years, either. Not since the day when the creditors had come to our cottage and shattered his leg in payment for his lost debts.

But Death puts everything into perspective. And he'd fought for us. In the end, he'd fought for us.

"I won't be able to walk," he said quietly. I brought my head up to look him in the eye, my eyelids now swollen, cheeks now tearstained. "He could heal my upper body, but the nerves further down refused to reconnect. I can't move them."

I gave him a watery smile. "It's fine," I insisted, bringing a hand up to wipe away a tear. "You're alive. That's all I can ask for. You're alive." I took his hand and squeezed it. "You came to save us."

"You spent so long saving me, it seemed only fair that I return the favour-" he tried to joke, but I saw the weight of it in his drooped shoulders, the resignation in his sigh. "I could've lost you-"

"But you didn't-" I wasn't sure where he was going with this.

"Feyre," he tried again, slightly exasperated with himself. He ran a hand over my ear - and the carefully tapered point. _Oh_. He blanched. "What happened to you? What's been happening these months whilst I was away?"

"It's a long story-" I started to say, before realising his attention wasn't solely on me anymore.

I looked behind me, to see Elain and Nesta standing in the entrance gaping. They too, had tears in their eyes - even Nesta. Nesta, who'd hated our father for so many years. Who would've had us starve to death for that hatred.

"It's a long story," I said again, and they nodded with me. "One that we all need to tell together."

* * *

The High Lords seemed to sense that they were no longer welcome in the tent, and wisely made themselves scarce. My sisters and I told the story from the start to the finish, occasionally glancing at each other in silent conversation about how detailed our account would be, and how much we wanted to tell him. But most of it flowed out uncontested, even if the parts about the nightmares and Amarantha and the Cauldron were difficult to voice.

At some point during the narrative, Rhys had woken up and joined us, and he was there when I described our mating night (leaving out any details about what it contained) and my instatement as High Lady of the Night Court. My father's eyes lingered on the sapphire ring on my finger sadly, then glanced at the band on Rhys's own finger.

"I wish I'd been there to see you wed," he said wistfully. "Your mother had a family ring I'd managed to salvage away at some point, and I'd intended to give it to one of you when you were married."

"I'm only one of three," I tried to say breezily, but the words stuck in my throat. "And there may be a few more marriages in the decades to come." I cast a sly glance at Nesta as I spoke; she caught it and scowled. My father's brows hiked further up his forehead.

But I took his hand again and said quietly, "You weren't there because you were away busy doing things that would come to save our lives, Father. Please, whatever you do, don't you dare regret that."

There was sorrow in his eyes - sorrow, and a bit of awe, as well. "You've grown up so much," he whispered. "All of you."

I thought of the Ouroborous - of the wolf I'd seen there. Would the woman I'd been before have been able to face that terrible truth and live?

But before I could contemplate it further, my father's eyes moved to Rhysand. "And I'd like a word with you, sir, about my daughter."

 _I do hope he doesn't try to ban the mating bond. Nesta already tried that._ Rhys commented into my mind.

I hid a smile. _When, exactly, was this?_

 _Which instance are you referring to?_

 _It's happened multiple times?_

 _Your sister is a stubborn creature._

I couldn't argue with that. So Rhys just dipped his head and said, "Of course."

It was almost comical, the image of the immortal High Lord of Night being lectured on how to treat his wife by a human he was a least ten times older than. It was so odd it almost didn't really fit into this world we lived in.

I wasn't entirely sure where my father himself would fit into this world, either. Whether he would stay with the mortals, or come with us to the Night Court, Whether another Wall would be erected that separated him from us forever, or if we could become the family I so craved. But I would try to work it out.

For my father's life, for the chance for us to be a proper family again, I would try to work it out.

It was the smallest price I had ever dreamed of paying.


	2. Cursebreaker

**Thanks to DouxBebeGladiator, Guest, isabelas, and Infernal Gamer for reviewing!**

 **Guest: I'll certainly add that to my list of oneshots to write! It should be up soon :)**

 **If anyone would like to read a specific one, just PM me or say so in the reviews, and I'll try to see it written.**

 **This one's a headcanon I came up with centred around the huntress the Bone Carver mentioned. There's also a slight crossover for any ToG fans out there :).**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own ACOTAR; it belongs to Sarah J Maas.**

* * *

 _Cursebreaker_

 **I**

Before there was a Cauldron, before there was Prythian, before there was humans and faeries and all the squabbles between them, there was Nothing.

And it was to that Nothing that the first being - who would be known in Prythian and Hybern and other territories thousands of years later as simply The Mother - came.

She was not of this world, so she knew that this world could be more than it was: a shamble of dust and shadows. She did not know if the shadows were sentient, or the dust magic, but she knew there was the unmistakeable tang of stillness in the world, and that if left untouched, she could return to it several millennia later and nothing would have changed.

A slim woman, with a strong frame, legends whispered about her would later say that she had long silver hair that fell to her waist, like liquefied starlight, and remarkable eyes of turquoise and gold. They said she was the youngest of many siblings, and the least powerful of all of them, only breezes and embers slumbering in her veins, but was by far the most compassionate, with the most regard for life.

She was an example of what would later be known as The Nephelle Philosophy.

They said she'd wandered through a rip in the world one day, like the silver-eyed demon would millennia later, only to find it sealed behind her. So she stayed, and created life.

The Cauldron was born through her efforts to build it, and the dust trembled at the power. Even then, she knew it would be used to do great and terrible thins, so she salvaged enough of the molten ore to form a book, one that sang of madness and order and creation to its possessor. The only thing that could hope to combat it.

And she took the Cauldron, and taught it to create the life she'd so cherished. The plants came first, but when the flowers began to wilt and die without their insect pollinators, she created bugs with iridescent wings that swarmed the world and filled the sky with flashing rainbows.

But they bred too quickly, and soon the earth was choked with their dying, starving corpses. So she created birds to eat them, and then larger birds to hunt those smaller avian beings. And when feathers and blood coated the world, she created beasts to hunt them further, until something of a food chain was established.

It was a pang to the chest when a great ivory stag one day emerged from that Cauldron. She stared at it with tears in her eyes, waiting for it to recognise her and bow, like the ones back home always had, but no. This wasn't one of Brannon's sacred. It was just an ordinary white stag, and was neither blessed nor cursed by legend. Not in this world.

Not in her world.

But the stag made her homesick, and though she knew she could not go back, she fingered her pointed ears, and brushed her hands over her human face. And she felt so lonely she might die of it.

So with the Cauldron, she created humans and faeries. And of the faeries, there were High Fae, modelled after the Fae of her own world, but there was also something entirely of her own: the creatures and friends of her dreams. Beings of ice and snow and winter breezes; of bark and trees and leaves; of fire and heat and light. Humans already had a name in her world, and she kept them largely the same as those of her old kingdom, but these sorts of faeries were foreign to her, and needed a name.

So she called them all faeries, solitary being faerie, after several mispronunciations of her own name she'd heard over the years.

But they would not remember her name. Only the name of the species, and the name they'd given her.

So although a High Fae queen with crimson hair would one day say to a terrified human girl in a chamber beneath a mountain that her name was from an old, old dialect of theirs, it was older still.

No one would remember the name her wildfire mother had given her, chosen from one of the books the woman so adored, nor the name that had been hissed in love and in terror by her siblings the day she'd gotten lost amongst the worlds. But she would be known as a Mother herself, and all things considered, she found she didn't mind it.

* * *

 **II**

The second female who bore the name the Mother had been given was a High Fae born into the area the world would later call the Dawn Court. But she was born in a time before High Lords, before Prythian, when humans and faeries still walked side by side. Her mother had named her such thanks to a dream she had the night before her birth, treated as a message from the Cauldron, of a strong warrior of that name, and how she brought freedom from oppression wherever she went.

So the warrior was born, and never learned that she shared a name with the Mother she worshipped, but harboured her compassionate nature, and was kind to faeries and humans alike.

One day, the warrior received word from a human friend of hers that a daughter had been lost to a phantom in the woods. No one else would believe her, the friend said, and claimed that she must have been kidnapped or devoured by wolves. The friend had only pursed her lips, rather than lose her dignity further by insisting she'd seen something else.

But the warrior was a High Fae, and had lived near the Middle for years. She knew what sort of monsters could lurk in the shadows. Knew how they bled and screamed, as well. And she knew they could be contained, if the Prison was anything to go by.

So she promised her friend she would investigate it, and set off the next morning.

The forest that covered the Middle was much the same as it would be years later, during an evil queen's forty nine year reign. The warrior trod lightly, an arrow already nocked in her strung bow. She knew better than anybody just how deadly monsters could be. And how useless swords were against them. If she could kill without getting too close, either by arrow or thrown knife, then she would.

But she never got the chance to attack.

A faint whistling was the only warning she had before a knife embedded itself in her side. She gasped at the pain, and tried to blink away the tears that gathered - _don't cry don't cry don't cry it'll only decrease your visibility_ \- even as the knife wound _burned_.

She glanced down at where it'd fallen. Ash. She muttered a curse. If her immortal healing wouldn't kick in, she'd have to take care not to to lose too much blood.

Pressing a hand against her wound to staunch the bleeding, she turned to face whoever had thrown the knife.

The breath was ripped out of her.

The phantom had a female's shape, but was undoubtably not of this world. She had hair as black as night and skin as white a snow - some nightmarish version of a princess from a children's tale. For her eyes were so dark they were caverns, and the warrior felt like she could see herself reflected in them - not just her image, vision, but the darkest depths of her soul. The parts that most people would be driven mad to see.

So the warrior didn't look.

The phantom prowled forwards. "Immortal girl," she mused. "Usually I prey on young human girls. Their youth and beauty is always so ripe for the taking. But you're not young, are you?" She cocked her head. "Young for a faerie, yes, but old - so, so old - for a human." She breathed in, like she could taste how the warrior's life would feel on her lips. "Immortal youth. . .

"But I have seen you in my mirror, huntress," the creature went on. "And it warns me not to challenge you. So I will let you walk away with your youth and your beauty, and do not return, or I will hunt you down. And then we will see who is the predator, and who is the prey, little wolf."

"No." She replied, even though her wound still wasn't scabbing over, and the blood wasn't clotting, and she knew it might be infected. But she wouldn't return and look her friend in the face, and say that she'd been cowed into backing down. "You won't eat another maiden."

"And who are you to stop me?"

Her spine straightened. "I am a huntress; I am a warrior. I will not let you continue your killing spree."

Her fear was a tangible thing, and she thought that was what the phantom was scenting as she raised her bone-white head and sniffed. But the phantom said, "You have encountered my brother. And lived." Those strange eyes lowered to hers again. "What did you do to him?"

The warrior trembled, but held firm. "I have encountered many monsters in my life and walked away. Which do you mean?"

Those eyes shone. "The last I heard, Koschei dwelled in some lake on the continent. A great, almost incorporeal, beast."

Oh. _Oh_. The warrior remembered him alright. He was the monster who made the most appearances in her nightmares. He'd almost taken her to be sealed at the bottom of the lake with him. Her hand shifted again to her side - to the knife strapped there. "I'm afraid he won't be leaving there any time soon."

"Strong huntress. Clever huntress. You would be a worthy opponent indeed. Who are you really?"

"Who are _you_?"

The phantom smiled then. Her teeth were rotten. "I am Stryga. But you may call me the Weaver of the Woods."

That was when the huntress threw her knife.

Her injury threw her aim off a little, and so she missed where she assumed the Weaver's heart would be, but it flew horizontally, and the long blade landed with a squelch in the phantom's eyes.

The scream the Weaver gave off wasn't of pain, but of rage. And as she took the knife by the handle and yanked it out of her face, blood pouring down her nose and cheeks, those eyes no longer glowed in her face as she hissed, "I may not be able to see you, little wolf. _But I can still smell you_."

Fear choked the warrior's throat as she ran.

From then on, the legends disagree on all but one thing: the Weaver ended up trapped in that little white-washed cottage in the woods in the Middle, and couldn't stray too far from its front door.

Some say that the cottage was the warrior's, one that she had to give up in order to trap the Weaver there by luring her in and spinning some of her own magic to seal the doors. Some say that the warrior simply ran off that day and some other being took advantage of the Weaver's wound a few days later to trap her. Some say the cottage was built for the task of holding her; others say the warrior had used whatever resources were on hand.

The legends don't even agree on her name.

But Stryga's twin knew it, having heard it from the wind and the rocks and the stones of the Prison he was incarcerated in. He sat there with it sitting in his memory as he carved bones for millennia, and it remained untouched there until a Made female visited one day, and he showed her a face she wouldn't see again for years, and promised his services in return for his sister's mirror.

It was still in his mind when he died.

* * *

 **III**

The warrior married a human man. He wasn't her mate - she'd never found her destined - but she loved him deeply enough to surrender her immortality and live a human lifespan with him. Her children looked more human than Fae, and they married humans, whose children married humans, until her line was a human one, with only a diluted trace of her High Fae bloodline.

Thousands of years later, after High Lords existed, after the Wall went up, the bloodline went on to produce a grey eyed woman who married the Prince of Merchants. Proud and cruel, but not naïve enough to let her intelligence be infected by it, she died of typhus early into her daughters' lives. But not before she'd extracted a promise from her youngest.

That youngest daughter went on to become the huntress with the artist's soul, a sixth of the Court of Dreams. The huntress walked into the woods so close to the border of the land where her distant ancestors now dwelled one day, and slew a wolf. Then she took total responsibility of it to save her sisters.

She saw with the artist's eyes that the Mother had bore before her; she fought with the determination of her warrior ancestor.

She went under a mountain and hunted and wept and killed and loved and fought and ruined. She went under a mountain and saved a land that was not her own from slavery, and a land that was her own from complete annihilation.

The human became Fae, and became whoever she wanted to be. She became the Cursebreaker, the Defender of the Rainbow, the High Lady of the Night Court. She became the spy, the whore, the emissary. The queen.

She became a legend. And as legends were wont to do, they gave her many names and titles. Too many.

But her mother had named her Feyre.


	3. Little Sister

**Thanks to isabelas, KateWinters97, Anonymous, DouxBeGladiator, Guest, and snoopykid for all reviewing!**

 **snoopykid: It's not set whilst Feyre's in the Spring Court, but I tried to take on as many of your ideas as possible, so I hope you like it.**

 **isabelas: Thank you! I've added it on to my list for things to write.**

 **KateWinters97: Thank you! And yes, it was Rowaelin's daughter ;)**

 **Anonymous: I'm definitely interested in that idea, and I have a fic in the works for it.**

 **DouxBeGladiator: Thanks for the review! I'd really like to explore how Lucien would react to that situation as well, so I look forward to doing that.**

 **Guest: Thanks!**

 **This oneshot was requested by snoopykid, and it's set before the last battle in ACOWAR, just after Feyre and Azriel return from Hybern's camp with Elain and Briar. I apologise to any Nesta fans out there if I mischaracterised her; I don't quite understand her as a character, so I apologise if she seems OOC. I tried to convey how she was changed by Elain's kidnapping, but I'm not sure how successful I was.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own ACOTAR, ACOMAF, or ACOWAR. They all belong to SJM.**

* * *

 _Little Sister_

I could hear each beat of Elain's heart, and it was both a blessing and a curse. I could hear each beat of Elain's heart, and it was both a blessing and a curse.

Blessing, because I knew with a certain clarity that she was alive, she was breathing, that the Cauldron hadn't stolen her away just to punish me.

Curse, because of the realisation each thump brought me closer to.

Elain had almost died. . . so the Cauldron could get back at me. To _hurt_ me.

And it had worked.

I lay awake whilst my sisters and I were in that tent all night. I could hear the soft breathing of Feyre and Elain that told me they were sound asleep. Feyre had fallen asleep first, despite the ash wound in her shoulder - she must've been exhausted after spending all her magic impersonating that bitch priestess and flying out of there. Her side was pressed against mine, her face turned towards me.

I wondered if she knew how human she looked in her sleep. How similar to the girl she'd once been. So long as her hair covered her ears, the only difference there was to see was the peaceful expression on her face. In the cottage she'd always appeared solemn and grave, even when unconscious. But something about immortality had smoothed that worry from her brow, and left her looking young again.

Maybe it wasn't immortality. Maybe it was happiness.

The Cauldron had come for Elain.

To get at _me_. Not because it hated her; it _loved_ her, if the gifts it'd granted her were any indication. And who wouldn't? She was so lovely, and sweet, and kind. . . It had no quarrel with her. No one ever did.

People only ever quarrelled with me.

Or Feyre.

And wasn't that why the King of Hybern had targeted us? Because Feyre had said that she loved us, and hated that she would go on living whilst we would die? Hadn't he changed us into Fae to prove just how hard he could hit, how much damage he could do? Hadn't he wanted to use us to destroy her?

It wasn't the first time I'd realised that. I'd known it for a long time, known. . . known that I would never be vital, like that. Not in the way Feyre was. I had hated her for how we'd been turned into Fae, mainly, but also for that. Because I could never make a difference the way she could.

Perhaps that was why I was so willing to work with Amren, and learnt to use my power. Because I wanted to make a difference too. And I hated how helpless I felt with Elain, and how useless I was to help her get better.

Just how useless I'd been for all those years in the cottage. . .

Could I blame Feyre, really, for being Made, for loving her High Lord and hurting and leaving and healing? Could I blame myself for what had happened to Elain?

This anger. . . it was everything. It was what kept me fiery when all other fuels had long since burned out. Could I afford to let it go now?

Feyre shifted against me in her sleep, a slight whimper escaping her. For an instant I thought she'd aggravated her wound, and a twinge of concern shot through me, before I picked up on her racing heartrate, and understood. She was having a nightmare.

I took her hand and squeezed it gently; better to soothe her whilst she was still asleep than wake her up. After a single hitched breath, her rigid spine relaxed, and she settled back down against me again. Her warmth bled into my side. I gave her hand a squeeze, then let go.

Soon enough, her breathing returned to normal, but now I was more awake than before.

I'd never realised my sister had nightmares.

I knew Elain did, and they were probably similar to my own: of a great gaping maw coming to devour me, drown me, and obliterate me from existence. Of great toothed gums, from which a roar sprayed whenever I yanked a tooth free.

But what were Feyre's horrors?

I knew she'd saved Prythian, back when she still loved the High Lord of the Spring Court, but I'd never thought to ask how. If anyone had tried to tell me, I certainly hadn't been listening. I knew she'd found it difficult, but I'd never thought our difficulties might be similar.

What demons stalked my little sister at night?

The thought haunted me until the sun rose. I didn't sleep one wink.

* * *

The thought still haunted me under the practical light of day, so I sought out the one person other than Feyre who might have the answers. Her mate.

It didn't take long to find him. His scent was a powerful one, and easily recognisable when I'd just spent hours in the company of his High Lady. I tracked it to the war tent where the High Lords strategized and plotted, and charged in without any sort of warning.

"Rhysand," I said as greeting, cutting off the one wearing a toga mid sentence. "I need to talk to you."

The male I'd interrupted raised an eyebrow, and the pale-haired one looked outraged, but Rhysand's tone was curiously neutral as he said, "Of course."

I marched outside, and I could almost feel him smirking as he followed. I had no doubt he'd learned that smirk from Cassian. Or Cassian from him. Or maybe they learnt it together.

He'd just fallen into step beside me, when I cut off his attempt to speak with a succinct, "I want you to tell me about Feyre."

Whatever he'd been expecting me to say, it was not that. He looked liable to choke, and his eyes went as wide as dinner plates.

I tried not to be too insulted by it. "I want you to tell me what happened to her after she left the manor for Prythian. I know the bare details - she won, she was locked up, she went to live with you - but I want the full story."

Rhysand looked over the square then, and I turned to see the blonde woman - Morrigan - talking to Feyre. Feyre was listening intently to whatever her cousin-in-law was saying. "Would you like to step away to hear it?"

I heard the meaning behind it. _Do you not want Feyre to be present or within earshot, or can she come?_

"I think. . ." I hesitated. "Stepping away might be best."

He betrayed none of what he felt about that beyond a slight raise to the eyebrows. But he led me away to the edge of the camp, and we sat atop the small foothills that overlooked the bustle of tents.

"When Feyre returned to the Spring Court from the Mortal Lands, she found it deserted. Only her old maid, Alis, was there, and it was Alis who explained the situation to her. She showed Feyre the passage that led Under the Mountain, and although she advised against it, Feyre still took it." A faraway gleam had entered his eye. "She didn't make it ten minutes under that rock, before the Attor caught her and dragged her before Amarantha.

"When she first came into that throne room. . . I was terrified out of my mind. I'd only met her twice before, but we were mates, and even if I hadn't realised it then, the urge to protect her was still raging. But I watched as she faced down Amarantha, and made a deal with her: over the course of three months, Feyre would complete three tasks to ' _prove her love_ ' for Tamlin. If she succeeded, Amarantha would free the High Lords and our powers. She was also given a riddle, and if she solved it, we'd all be instantly freed, but if she got it wrong, her life was forfeit."

"What was the riddle?" I asked, that intrinsic curiosity Feyre and I both possessed getting the better of me.

He gave me a stare, long and hard, before reciting:

" _'There are those that seek me a lifetime but never we meet,_

 _And those I kiss but who trample me beneath ungrateful feet._

 _At times I seem to favour the clever and the fair._

 _Bu I bless all those who are brave enough to dare._

 _By large, my ministrations are soft-handed and sweet,_

 _But scorned, I become a difficult beast to defeat._

 _For though each of my strikes lands a powerful blow,_

 _When I kill, I do it slow. . .'_ "

"Love," I said instantly. Elain, Feyre. _Cassian_. "The answer's love."

He nodded with a neat dip of the head. "Indeed it was."

"Feyre didn't get that?"

"Feyre, lest you forget, had significantly less education than you did, Nesta Archeron, so I'd watch where you shove your unwanted judgement."

I clamped a hand down on my rising fury; my power was rising with it, and I didn't want to cause a scene. But the amused look Rhysand sent me told me enough of how successful I was at muffling the effects.

I waved my hand. "Continue."

He obliged. "No sooner had she made this deal than Amarantha than the Amarantha's cronies descended on her and beat her to a pulp, breaking her nose in the process. They dragged her away to a cell. Lucien - Elain's mate," he added the last part with care, as though he thought I'd snap at him for the statement, "snuck into her cell later to heal her."

I didn't want to wonder whether he was saying that in an attempt to endear the male to me, or to simply support the story.

"In the few days before her first trial, Amarantha asked me about her. I told her the bare basics: Feyre was a huntress, she had killed the wolf, she had lived in poverty most of her life." There was definitely a jab behind those words. I tried not to bristle. "And the first trial was played off the fact she was a huntress, and she was made to hunt the Middengard Wyrm."

I'd read about it before, during those weeks we were living in the House of Wind. I shuddered.

Rhysand was watching me, and there were shadows in those strange eyes of his. "I know," he said, before continuing to speak. I only interrupted sparingly.

He told me the rest of the story, including the parts I already knew, even when his throat closed up and I could smell how his scent was drenched in terror at the mere memory of it. I listened intently the entire time, even when my thoughts started to drift - _the Attor had attacked Feyre near our own manor?_ \- and although I felt no pity for her, knowing she wouldn't want it, I tried not to belittle her experiences either.

I didn't know how to feel in regards to this. . . revelation. Did it bother me that I barely knew my sister at all?

"Is that what you wanted to hear, Nesta Archeron?" Rhysand asked once he'd finished. "Did that give you the answers you've been looking for?" I didn't answer, and he laughed bitterly.

There was quiet for a moment, then he said, "You know, when she was Under the Mountain, she wasn't just fighting for Tamlin."

I didn't want to hear this; I almost opened my mouth to cut him off, but he went on before I could. "She would recite names to herself, to remind her why she was fighting. Tamlin. Lucien. Alis and her boys. Nesta. Elain." I hadn't seen this sort of brittle anger inside him for weeks. I supposed he didn't have any time for it when he was at war. "Do you understand, Nesta Archeron?"

Did I understand why I'd decided to ask him? Did I understand why he'd agreed to tell me? Did I understand why I'd hugged Feyre yesterday, when it was Elain who'd gone missing?

I didn't have an answer. But perhaps that was answer enough for him.

So instead, I asked, "You love her? Truly?"

He looked almost offended at the insinuation that he didn't. "More than anything."

"Good," I said dismissively, already turning away. "Otherwise I might have to ban the mating bond again."

A chuckle came out of him as he no doubt remembered the same scene as I did: the House of Wind, whilst Feyre was still at the Spring Court, and I'd screamed whatever I had to at him to get him to leave us alone. It had been one of the more desperate things I'd shouted.

"I have a feeling there'd be a few people with objections to that," was his reply.


	4. Child of Light and Fire

**Thanks to oyasumiK, snoopykid, fantastically, and Guest for reviewing!**

 **oyasumiK: Thank you! I did my best so it's gratifying to know it wasn't a mess.**

 **fantastically: Thanks for reviewing! It made me smile so much :)**

 **snoopykid: Thanks!**

 **Guest: I'll do my best to! I'm sorry if the updates are a bit erratic, though :/.**

 **This one was requested by DouxBeGladiator, and is centred around Lucien finding out the truth about his father. I may have deviated slightly form the original request a bit, but I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

 _Child of Light and Fire_

Eris had called in his bargain.

Of course, no one had bothered to confirm that to Lucien, but he knew enough. He didn't think that Beron, the long reigning High Lord of the Autumn Court, had just dropped dead swiftly and suddenly of his own accord.

Admittedly, he _had_ been taken ill the night before, by a disease that had struck with intense vomiting and a high fever, and had mysteriously passed away during the early hours of the morning, but Lucien didn't think it was a coincidence that it happened less than a year after the war had ended, just when Rhys and Feyre had started to go oddly quiet whenever the Autumn Court was mentioned in casual conversation.

The final straw was when he realised that some of the more _unusual_ symptoms (namely, the swelling of one's joints, and the way one's voice alternated randomly between very low and very high) matched closely the disease there'd been a small outbreak of on Hybern, that Rhys and Feyre had invested in searching for a cure for. Azriel had returned from the island with it, and as the only one who'd been in the House of Wind at that time, the others either dealing with things in the war camps, or the Hewn City, Lucien had been the one with the privilege of looking after him in that condition.

Fortunately, Madja had pulled through and found a cure for it, but the Night Court had never offered it to Beron. They'd never even let him get wind of the fact they had one. How strange.

Not that Lucien was complaining; he was glad the male was dead and gone. The only thing that irritated him was that he'd now be required to accompany his High Lord and High Lady to the large funeral being thrown, for diplomatic reasons Lucien understood all too well as the Night Court's new emissary.

He had to sit through all the pomp and ceremony in the world, trying not to think about the fact that he was now in the place where they'd tortured Jesminda to death, where the culprits sat mere metres away, pretending to look remorseful at their father's death, but secretly grinning like fiends at each other.

Lucien breathed a sigh of relief when Eris stood to say a few words, and lit the pyre Beron's body lay on. His eldest brother did so with significant feigned sorrow and pomp, but Lucien couldn't bring himself to care.

After the funeral was over, he didn't bother to attend Eris's crowning as High Lord. It gave him nightmares to think of what would happen to the Autumn Court under his ruling. Of course, his father had been awful and unnecessarily cruel, as proven by the harshness of his taxes and how little his farmers earned, but Eris. . .

Well, to quote himself: Eris was a snake.

So he didn't attend the ceremony, and instead wandered around the Forest House, doing his best not to run into any familiar faces - _their laughter oh their laughter was terrible and his brothers' was the worst almost as bad as the screaming that had turned scratchy and hoarse as Jesminda had blown out her vocal cords_ \- and pointedly steering himself away from anywhere that held bad memories.

When he finally came to a convergence of two tunnels, he paused. He didn't know where he was headed, and he didn't want to delay the Night Court in any way when they tried to leave by finding out he'd gotten himself lost.

He didn't want to spend a moment more in this hellhole than he had to.

"Don't tell me you're lost, my son. You're the one who always spent the most time here; I'd have doubted you'd have forgotten."

He recognised the speech pattern, the formal words thrown together to form a clunky sentence uttered by a voice that was warm and yet not; heated from the inside like her fire still burned at her core, even as there was no outward sign of it. He heard his mother's sigh as she approached from the left hand passage behind him, and her hand - so thin, so frail, was she eating, was she okay? - gripped his shoulder with the same gentleness he remembered.

"I'm not lost," he said. "Just. . . thinking. Walking."

"Then let me walk with you," she replied. He wondered if she was grieving over his father; he _had_ detected a faint, commanding edge to her tone. Or perhaps she was commanding because she was relieved he was gone. "I can show you what's changed. What you've missed."

He forced a smile down at her, and was shocked, as always, by how she was shorter than him. He'd always looked up to her. It was hard to realise just how much he'd forgotten in the last centuries.

Her red hair - the exact same shade as his, and more orange than the shades of his father's and brothers' - was streaked with grey as well, and crows feet were beginning to form around her eyes. It was easy to forget that as well; that she was hundreds of years old, and had been young when the War was new.

But there was strength in her voice that came from neither age nor title as she said, "I have something to tell you. About your father." His face must have drooped like a wilting leaf in autumn, because she pressed a hand to his cheek - a quick, affectionate motion, like a flitting butterfly. "But not here. Let us walk for a bit first."

Lucien narrowed his eyes a bit at the suggestion. If it was anyone else, he would refuse, on the suspicion of ulterior motives. Hell, he _knew_ she had ulterior motives.

But she was his mother.

He couldn't say no.

So they walked through corridors that were painfully familiar to him, and when the silence grew too much to bear, he asked with a touch of bitterness, "How does it feel to be a widow?"

She glanced around them briefly, like she was afraid of being overheard, before she spoke. "Liberating. Disconcerting. Odd. I've spent all but twenty years of my life married to that male, hosting his balls and being a pretty, submissive little lady. Before that. . . My parents are dead. My sisters are dead. I have nothing to go back to."

"No one ever said you had to go back anywhere, Mother."

She gave him a gentle smile, and patted his shoulder again. "No, but Eris wants me out of the way of any future court machinations. For my own safety."

"Eris is a snake."

"That he is, but he loves me, if no one else." She sighed. "He's been quick to seize his father's position. Some Fae will call him heartless for it. Accuse him of the murder."

"Eris has been labelled heartless and murderous for centuries. Even by Father."

"That's the thing I invited you on this walk to talk about." His mother said then, and there was a new assertiveness to her voice that hadn't been there before. "Beron. Your father. Or - not."

Lucien froze. "What?" He asked. He must've misheard.

His mother seemed to take stock of it too, because she paused. Changed tact. "You are aware my sisters were-" She swallowed. "Were killed during the War."

He nodded, and she went on, "They did it to. . . to protect me. I'd been sent to live with them whilst the conflict raged, and Eris and the likes were shipped off to stay with other relatives. To spread out the bloodline. But our house was attacked, and they bought me time to run with their lives." Her voice cracked, and he wondered how often she'd told this story.

"But it wasn't enough. And the faeries who'd killed them caught up to me on the edge of a ravine, and I was stuck on a ledge, with the murderers who'd killed my dearest family snapping at my feet." She closed her eyes, like she could still see it. Lucien smelt her scent shift to scared at the mere memory of it. "Helion found me, and got me out."

Helion.

Not "Hell Spell-Cleaver".

Not "High Lord of the Day Court".

Helion.

Lucien said softly, "He was in love with you." Not a question. "And you him."

She nodded her confirmation. "We'd met at the equinox ball the year before I was engaged to Beron. He tore the beasts apart with his bare hands that day on the ridge." He felt what she was about to said before she said it. "A few decades later, Beron found out we were having an affair."

Lucien was only slightly surprised he didn't know about this. But he knew the way his father - or who he'd thought was his father - worked, and it would've been mortifying for the famously cruel High Lord of Autumn to openly attack a fellow High Lord. Just to let the world know that his wife - who he'd believed _his possession_ \- had betrayed him.

For an instant, he was reminded of Feyre, Tamlin and Rhysand's drama. Then he dispelled the image.

"He wanted to kill me. He wanted to kill me for betraying and humiliating him. But I was pregnant with you." Lucien's heart skipped a beat. "And when you were born, and could be passable as his own offspring. . . He began to doubt. But he's kept me on a tighter leash since."

"So," he said. The words were peculiarly flat. "You're saying that Helion - _High Lord of the Day Court_ \- is my father?"

She put her hands out to the side, palms facing skyward. "It's possible. And if you look at yourself, and look at him, there are similarities. I'm honestly surprised no one's noticed yet."

He gaped, unable to close his mouth. He tried working his jaw, but no words came out. His tongue was a lump of flesh in his mouth. "I'm not the seventh son of a High Lord." He said finally.

"No." Her voice, impossibly, was even softer than before. "You're the _only_ son of a High Lord."

"Helion - my father - never married?"

"No. I don't know why."

He was still fighting for words. "Should I talk to him about this

"If you want. He doesn't know, though. If you want me to be the one to tell him, I'll gladly do so." She squeezed his shoulder. "It's your choice."

Words bubbled to the back of his throat, and he let them go. "I understand - why you kept it a secret."

"I'm glad."

Silence reigned triumphant.

"I need to get back to the Night Court." He burst out, and as he spoke the words he realised how late it must be, how Feyre and Rhys must be waiting for him. He gave her an apologetic look. "I need to think this over, before I can make any decisions."

But there was no regret in her eyes as she murmured, "Ever the wise one," and kissed him on the brow.

He hurried away through the corridors, mind whirling. When he stopped for breath, he took a moment to fully comprehend the situation.

Helion. The High Lord of the Day Court, the Night Court's strongest ally. Was. His. Father.

He burst out laughing.

"So long as I don't have to wear a toga," was all he muttered to himself, and he ran the rest of the way with a peculiar lightness.


	5. Skyfall

**Thanks to Fire Breathing Queen, DouxBeGladiator, Guest, Oirasse, and Dacowluva for all your kind reviews!**

 **Fire Breathing Queen: Thank you! I'll add that to the list of ones to write :)**

 **Guest: Your review made me so happy! I'm toying with the idea of continuing it into a second oneshot, and I'm glad you enjoyed it enough to want that!**

 **DouxBeGladiator: Thank you! Lucien's another character I find fairly difficult to write, so I'm glad I did alright. I might be continuing it with Helion finding out the truth, so keep an eye out for that!**

 **Oirasse: Thanks so much! It's always nice to know I'm doing okay at not making them too OOC, and I absolutely love headcanons and fan theories, so I'm going to try and fill as many plot holes as possible! If you have any you'd like to see filled, or have any requests, be sure to PM me or say in the reviews :)**

 **Dacowluva: Thank you so much for all of your reviews! Especially your comment about chapter 2; that's what I was going for, so I'm thrilled to know it came across. I hope you like this one!**

 **This oneshot wasn't requested by anyone, but it randomly came to mind when I was listening to Skyfall by Adele earlier, and I had to write it. It's Rhys's PoV of his death scene, and I would recommend listening to the song either whilst reading it or before/after, just to get a feel for what i was trying to go for.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the ACOTAR franchise; it belongs to Sarah J Maas. Nor do I own all the Skyfall references in this. The song is by Adele.**

* * *

 _Stay With The High Lady_

This was the end.

I was spent. I knew it, and I knew that if I gave too much power now, it would kill me.

But the Cauldron was broken. And if we didn't fix it, more than us would die. Our _world_ would collapse, and Mor and Cassian and Azriel and Nesta and Elain and Lucien and Tarquin and Cresseida and Varian and Helion and all the residents of Velaris and Prythian and the Mortal Realms would perish.

And Feyre might survive. My darling Feyre might survive the idea I had, and go on to rule our court and paint the world in colour again, even if I wasn't there to see it. Feyre, who I could not tell about this terrible idea of mine, because she would object. She would insist we find another way.

There was no other way.

I had told her that I would give everything in this war; I had dreamt in my darkest nightmares what this moment might entail. The dreams I would never show Feyre, or she would know just how much of a coward I was.

But I had meant what I said about sacrifice.

And my death was long due. I had survived six hundred years of war and ruin. It was only fitting I died as soon as I had my shot at peace.

We were meant to face it all together. But now she had to go on alone. My time was spent.

"Try. Humour me," I begged, trying not to let her see just how fully drained I was as I rallied the last few dregs of my power.

I could her brain chafing, trying to calculate the risks, the possibility, any alternative options, but she came up short, too. So she blew out a breath between her teeth and muttered, "Better than nothing."

She looked. . . young. In that moment, she looked so, so young, and scared, and it came crashing back to me that this was a twenty year old woman who'd fought and won a war, and was about to lose her soulmate. And some part of me I tried to ignore for the greater good knew that it would destroy her.

My heart burst at the thought, and I had to count to ten in my head to calm myself down.

But I needed her to keep fighting. If not for me, then for herself, and the rest of the world. "That's the spirit." A pause, then her terror crushed me, and I tried to distract her with, "Remind me never to get on Nesta's bad side."

She barely had it in her to laugh.

She brushed a touch along my mental shields, and I didn't know if she was giving reassurance or seeking it, but I smiled down at her anyway and kissed her, even as I didn't drop my shield. She would learn why soon enough.

She laid her hands on the Cauldron, so close to that terrifying nothingness that every bit of my being recoiled in fear for her. But she was not afraid. And when she reached out for the power, I gave it to her.

I gave it in a steady stream that barrelled through her, even as I felt myself growing weaker and weaker.

It had all started with her death. And now it would end with mine.

I looked at her, and her only, as she did. Sweaty, bloodied up, with hair flying everywhere, and a bone-deep weariness to her face, she had never looked more beautiful. I ran my eyes over her, trying to imprint her onto my mind.

If this was the last moment I would have with her, I wanted to remember and treasure it forever.

 _I love you_ , I said down the bond. A weak flicker of affection was the only sign she'd heard me. But I had to be sure.

With the last scraps of life, I whispered again, _I love you_. My last words; my truest words.

I had a feeling the earth moved when death stole me away.

Then all was soft and dark and peaceful.

(But there were a discomfort at the back of my skull, like a constant continuous whine-)

My mind blurred, I dimly remembered something someone had said once in a cell to a creature carving bones. The person - someone important to me, I was sure, but _who_ \- had described the place as I experienced it now, a nothing that was relaxing and free.

(The whine didn't stop; it only grew louder; it only got more distressing, like it was a sound that cleaved my heart in soul in two-)

"Foolish boy," a voice hissed in my ear. I felt no alarm in this untroubled state, nor could I place the voice, but there was something familiar about it, something that spoke of rubies and diamonds and lairs and barked commands and silver eyes of smoke and shadow. . . "She's still waiting for you in your world. Your time is not yet up, Rhysand."

Rhysand. That was it; that was my name. Rhysand, though most called me Rhys, including-

That was screaming. She was screaming. The whine I heard was anguished cries and they ripped through me, and I wanted nothing more than to comfort the screamer, murmur in her ear, because she'd been through so much, and I loved her so much, and she didn't deserve this, didn't deserve _me_ -

 _Stay with the High Lord_. The words floated to me on a breath of wind.

High Lord. I was a High Lord - wasn't I? - and I couldn't abandon my people like this-

 _Stay. Stay stay stay stay STAY._

There was sobbing, and somehow it hurt even more than the screams had. There were comforting words spoken, but then there were snarls and more screams, and there was a hand clutching mine but I couldn't clutch it in return. She'd fought so hard, and never been given anything in return. . .

 _Bring him back._

The voice - my mate, my mate, my mate - wasn't talking to me.

 _BRING HIM BACK_.

There was indistinct mumblings, then warmth flared in my chest, along with the words, _For what he gave. Today, and for many years before_.

What had I given, that the innocents of the world - that _she_ \- did not already deserve?

More spots of heat flared in my chest, and I began to remember. Feyre - it was Feyre screaming and begging, and it was Morrigan threatening to kill Beron if he didn't grant me his kernel of life. He did so grudgingly.

And that voice in the darkness. . . That was Amren.

"Do you want to come home?" I asked her. I held out my hand.

She had no spoken answer, but I felt her take it.

A final flare of heat brought me closer to life, and I opened eyes that were not my own. Feyre - it was Feyre whose eyes I was looking through, who was yanking on that bond. I was there, and yet not; we were a thousand miles apart. It was Feyre I saw through - Feyre now looking at her former love and begging for his contribution, promising him anything - _anything_ \- in return for me.

I knew the sort of desolation he held in his eyes as he said, "Be happy, Feyre," and walked away.

Her gaze switched to me, my body, but I was already leaving. I was already back in my body, and my chest was rising and falling with breath, and I felt the mating bond yank into place again, like a tether that kept me to the world.

Feyre was still begging - but she was begging _me_ now.

 _Stay_. _Stay stay stay_.

And then she told me our story, and I remembered it all.

She was crying when my hand twitched, and I brushed it against her lower back. "If we're all here, either things went very, very wrong, or very right."

Cassian's laugh was a broken, hoarse thing. Helion drawled, "You do know how to make an entrance. Or should I say exit?" and Viviane told him off. Mor started crying.

But I only had eyes for Feyre. " _Stay with the High Lord_ ," I murmured.

A thought of hers slipped into my head: that it was fake, it was all a dream, none of this was happening-

"It's real," I promised. "And there's another surprise." My voice rose. "Someone fish dear Amren out of the Cauldron before she catches a cold."

Then Mor was sprinting, and Varian was close on her heels, and Feyre's breathed, "How?" had me explaining the story.

Feyre was still clutching my hand when she looked away from Amren and back at me. I squeezed it tightly. In that moment, her eyes were the brightest thing in existence.

"I'll stay with the High Lady, then," I said, and held her as she cried tears of blood and anguish.


	6. Heart of Gold

**Hello again! Thanks to Fire Breathing Queen, annieherondalelightwood, snoopykid, Anonymous, Oirasse, and Maha for reviewing!**

 **Fire Breathing Queen: Thank you for your review! It made me smile so much.**

 **annieherondalelightwood: Thank you! :)**

 **snoopykid: That's a brilliant idea! I'll try to make sure to write that soon.**

 **Anonymous: Thank you so much! Your review made my day. And don't worry, I haven't forgotten it. I'm just trying to get through the many ideas I have, because this book gave me so. Many. Feels. It should be within the next few updates! :)**

 **Oirasse: Thank you! And that sounds great; I'll try to get on that soon.**

 **Maha: Thanks for your review, but I'm sorry to say I probably won't be continuing that particular one. I've just got genuinely no idea where it would go from there.**

 **And also, I won't be posting any chapters for quite a few days because I'm not going to have access to wifi for the next week or so. But I will try to get some writing done, so after this I'll see you some time in June!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the world, or any of the characters. Only the writing.**

* * *

 _Heart of Gold_

"Tell me about her," the owner of Rita's - Rita, she was called Rita, it was kind of _obvious_ \- said.

Mor jerked her head up, her mind still slightly foggy. Was she drunk? No, she couldn't be drunk; she had an untouched glass in front of her.

"You're not drunk, Morrigan," Rita said, taking a seat in the booth opposite her. Had she spoken aloud? "Just very, very tired." She pulled a pocket watch out and glanced at it. She clucked her tongue. "And no wonder. It's three am. And yes, you are speaking aloud. Mumbling incoherently, but aloud."

Mor's head began to list forwards. The wood of the table approached; the grains coming closer and closer into focus and ooh that was a pretty pattern-

" _Morrigan_."

Suddenly there was a hand on her forehead, and she was being pushed backwards. As soon as her eyes were level with hers, Rita gave her a stern look. "Try to stay lucid, or I'll contact your Illyrian friends and get them down here to drag you back to the townhouse."

"Don't." Mor jerked up at that. Rita raised a thin eyebrow at her reaction. "Please, don't. They can't know I'm here, at this hour-" She was talking so fast she hiccupped. A tear slid down her cheek - when did it escape her eye? Fugitive tear - and she wiped it away. "They can't know I'm this upset."

Rita frowned. Mor had always thought she looked a little like Miryam, if Miryam's softer human features had been sharpened to the point of severity, and she'd had small, captivating green eyes. Her black hair was a few shades darker than her skin, and although it was stick straight, unlike Miryam's controlled curls, the similarities were almost eerie.

Perhaps that was why Mor had made such fast friends with her, so quickly after Rita's had been set up. She'd been missing her friend dearly, and had settled for Rita. It was a horrible thought.

"Alright then," Rita said, picking up Mor's glass and swirling the amber liquid around idly. She glanced at Mor's face, and the devastation undoubtedly written there, and put it aside. She folded her hands in front of her again. "Tell me what's wrong. Tell me about her."

"Her?" Mor croaked. "Who said it was a her?"

"Mor, I know you're attracted to females. You told me, remember? I am too. And I've seen you have relationships with males before, but they never went as deep as those with females. So forgive me for making assumptions."

"No, you're right." Mor rubbed at her eyes. "She's female. The person I'm brooding over, that is."

"Tell me about her," Rita said again, and though it sounded like a command, Mor knew there was that element of choice to it, should she not wish to divulge too much.

But she was tired of keeping it all in. So very tired.

"Her name was Andromache. She was a Mortal Queen. During the War." Her chest heaved. "And I loved her so, so much."

The image of her flashed into her mind. Gold hair and eyes and skin and laugh and heart and soul. A true treasure.

Her descendant had shared her looks - and goodness, apparently.

Before she'd been spiked to the bridge over the Sidra by the Attor, and watched it run red.

Rita's voice was soft as she said, "I assume it didn't end well."

"Do faerie-human relationships ever end well?"

"The High Lord's appears to have," Rita mused. Her dark eyes glinted, and Mor knew better than to ask how she'd found out about Feyre and her story. "But otherwise. I'll have to agree with you. They're a doomed thing."

"Her name was Andromache," Mor repeated, before trailing off. Andromache was - Cauldron, how could she even begin to describe her? Living and breathing light, with a laugh like sunbeams and a smile somehow even brighter. Eyes like infernos that left trails of heat whenever she looked at her, and somehow strong - so, so strong - even contained in that fragile human body of hers. And so intelligent and open minded - she'd been the first Mortal Queen to bother to listen to what Mor had to say, and had never condemned her for having the pointy ears and immortal grace of their enemies. Not once.

She'd been a star amongst a century of darkness. A bright spot of hope that Mor cherished for the peace between their peoples. And perhaps. . . perhaps she'd known all along that there was no future between them. Nothing but the here and the now, and whatever emotions lay between. Perhaps she'd always understood that Andromache was a queen, and queens did not dabble with disillusioned, dishonoured, _tainted_ girls from the land that oppressed them.

Perhaps she'd always known that in no way was an outcast from the Court of Nightmares worthy of a woman whose brilliance rivalled that of Helion Spell-Cleaver himself.

But that didn't make it any easier when the Wall had gone up, and she'd been told that she would never again - _never_ _again_ \- be graced with her presence, never be able to hear her voice or her laugh, or sit with her in a quiet meadow, or see her bright visage like a Cauldron-blessed saint's. It didn't make it any easier when she'd heard the news.

 _"Queen Andromache? Oh, she's in the Summer Palace, preparing to give birth. We're told it's a daughter. Her husband's there as well - sweet man, absolutely adores her, though it's clear she doesn't feel the same way. She's probably just doing her queenly duties in marrying him_."

She hated that word. _Duties_.

It was duties that kept her busy with the Court of Nightmares.

(Not that she didn't enjoy terrorising her father and family, but there were limits, and there were days - hard days - where she didn't want to go anywhere near that Cauldron-cursed mountain, when walking its halls made her want to vomit, and playing her father's game made it feel like he was the one winning after all. _D_ _on't let the hard days win_ , she'd said, but the hard days were so hard, and fighting was so hard, it was always so hard, especially when you were fighting no one but yourself.)

It was duties that had destroyed Feyre so completely when she was at the Spring Court, until she thought she was failing her friends and lover because she didn't want to have children, didn't want to plan parties, didn't want to wear a monstrosity of a wedding gown and walk down an aisle scattered in rose petals like blood and wear white like she was _pure_ , like she was _good_ , when she'd so firmly believed she wasn't.

(Not that she wasn't pleased about the shoes in that outfit; not when one of them had made such a significant dent in Rhysand's head. But the memory of laughter was overshadowed by Feyre's screams, and how her friend had writhed and screamed in a cocoon of fire and darkness and ice and somehow both clung to and recoiled from her at the same time when she'd hoisted her into her arms and the way her breathing had stopped like it would never start again when they'd ducked into that tunnel to the Summer Court and then there was Rhysand ad light and life and Feyre could breathe and Morrigan could breathe and maybe everything would be alright.)

It was duties that kept Azriel so busy, and when he failed at them, he felt like he was a failure in his own being. Mor knew too well the moods he'd gotten into when he couldn't infiltrate the Mortal Queens' palaces. She'd seen the way he'd looked at her then, and known what he longed for, and though she would have traded anything - _anything_ \- to heal his pain, she wouldn't give him what he longed for, _couldn't_ give him what he longed for because false hope was the cruellest thing and although she might try to be happy in a relationship with him, she never would be. And she respected herself enough to not put her through it.

Self respect - self respect was perhaps the one thing Keir had not managed to steal from her.

(Not that Azriel wouldn't notice if she was unhappy; he knew her far too well. And it would destroy him, that in his paradise his loved one was sad, and he would destroy himself to try and make it better, until the web was even more tangled than it had been, and no one could get out alive.)

(She never had been able to lie to Azriel.)

But Andromache - _Andromache_ \- was still there. Still a barrier in her heart, even hundreds of years later, even if they'd never become mates, because every male lover was a distraction, and every female lover was the complete opposite of her noble queen, not to mention a complete secret, as if so long as she kept it quiet knowledge of her actions would never find its way to Andromache's grave.

Mor took a sip of the drink in front of her. It burned on the way down.

She shouldn't be doing this - she shouldn't be here. She shouldn't be destroying herself like this with another war brewing, and the expedition to Hybern fast approaching with the dawn, and with her city rebuilding itself around her.

But, just as Rhys could never stay away from Feyre, Mor could never keep her thoughts from wandering down forbidden paths.

"Her name was Andromache," Mor tried again. Her voice cracked, and tears ran down her face. There was a hand on her shoulder, a comforting squeeze, and then Rita was next to her in the booth and her head was on her shoulder and Mor hiccupped and began to cry. "And I loved her so, so much."


	7. Cranky Old Aunt

**Hello again! Sorry for how long it's been, but I went away for a week and when I got back was hit by a load of homework and revision. I still haven't gotten through al of it, so updates will be sporadic still, but I finally found a morsel of time to write.**

 **Thanks to Oirasse, isabelas, annieherondalelightwood, Maha and Anonymous for reviewing!**

 **Oirasse: Thank you! And I didn't even really come up with the idea until I was halfway through the oneshot, so I had to go back and edit it in. I'm glad you liked it!**

 **isabelas: It was my pleasure! There was no better place to set it. And I love Mor as well; she's impossible _not_ to love. I'll definitely be doing a oneshot based on Elriel/Elucien soon, because I really want to explore those three, and I'm in that annoying stage where I ship both of them SO MUCH. I've got a few ideas, so keep your eyes out!**

 **annieherondalelightwood: Thanks for your review! I agree, but the angst idea came to me, so the angst idea I wrote :'(. I might have a few ideas for oneshots forming from those requests, so I'll try to write them as soon as possible!**

 **Maha: I know exactly how I'm going to do that, and thank you for the idea, because it'll probably be in the next chapter and I love it.**

 **Anonymous: Thank you! I wrote a bit of Amrian like you requested, but sorry it deviated slightly from the prompt...**

 **This chapter was meant to be a funny/light-hearted one, but then the topic of death came up and I ran with it from there. Originally written for Anonymous, but it went a bit off track. Inspired by Lucien's comment that Amren acted like a "Cranky Old Aunt" to the Inner Circle. Enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own ACOTAR, or any of the characters in it.**

* * *

 _Cranky Old Aunt_

Logically, Amren knew that her silver eyes no longer glowed, no longer held the illusion that there was smoke swirling behind them, just below the surface, like a trapped ghost trying to escape and wreak vengeance.

But that didn't mean she didn't try to use her old death stare on this fiend in front of her in the vain hope that it would get it to _shut up_.

It failed.

Of course it failed.

It had been failing in the last seventy years since the War.

It had been especially ineffective on Rhys and Feyre, and considering this _thing_ was their offspring it would make sense that it wasn't afraid of her either.

It was now flailing on its front in the crib, having rolled over idly in its sleep, and its tiny wings heaved as it tried to right itself. Amren could tell the heaving was about to become sobbing, then screaming. It was really a most tiresome cycle that had already repeated itself three times this evening.

Why did Rhys and Feyre have to run off to the Court of Nightmares again? And why was _she_ the only one left to deal with their spawn?

Well, her and-

The baby's soft cries hated abruptly when it was lifted by two scarred but gentle hands. They turned into hiccups, then delighted gurgling as Varian brought it up to his chest and started murmuring some sort of lullaby to it. One from the Summer Court, most likely - they all had that same lilting melody, like the lapping of waves.

Once the creature's sounds had quieted back into mid-sleep snuffles, Varian put it back in its cradle and given her a reproachful look. "He might have suffocated."

"It would have been fine."

" _He_ is just a baby, Amren. You can't blame Dorian for Keir's antics dragging his parents down to deal with the problem."

Dorian gave a little snort in his sleep, and wrapped his arms tighter round his stuffed bat, Batty. (Amren had been astounded by Rhys's imagination). The darkness crept around him like a woollen jumper. She knew that you had to keep a close eye on the little boy as he slept, because the peculiar amalgamation of Rhys and Feyre's powers had led to him randomly shifting into a wolf pup, or turning into a miniature star as he slept. One time he'd wrapped himself in a cocoon of water, and Varian (who'd thankfully been visiting at the time) had had to coax it away from him before he drowned.

"A baby with even more power than his father before him," she mused, her thoughts unrelated to the previous topic. "I can't help but wonder what sort of a High Lord he'll make."

"Hopefully, he won't have to make a High Lord at all." Varian shivered at the morbid topic, and immediately looked to the window, but didn't make a move to close it. Her lover had never quite gotten used to the colder climates of the Night Court, though that never stopped him trying.

"Everyone dies, Varian," she said lazily, swinging her eyes back to the sleeping monster. Young - compared to her, both the males in this room were positively children. "Even immortals. I would know."

"Let's not talk about this when we're supposed to be stopping Dorian from losing control of his powers."

"Well, Feysand's spawn appears to be magic free for now, so I don't see the point in this conversation." The moment the words left her mouth, she cursed herself. She'd been spending entirely too much time around Mor, and her stupid "ship names" had rubbed off on her. She was just glad the female hadn't started on her and Varian yet, or she might be inclined to leave him just to put an end to this shipping nonsense.

Feyre wasn't exactly tolerable in that area either, but she was only ninety one. She hadn't been alive long enough to accumulate the seriousness Amren had seen most High Lords and Ladies hold. But there was plenty of time for that. Mor, leaning near on six hundred years old, should really know better.

Unfortunately, it was too late to take the words back, because Varian's eyebrows had already shot up into his hairline, and an insufferable grin was forming on his face. "Feysand?"

"It was Mor's idea. I can't help but pick up on it a little when she goes on about it so much." Not that the heavy blush it elicited in Feyre wasn't mildly amusing, but there was really a line, Morrigan.

Varian held up his hands. "I'm not insulting it. My only query is that surely 'Feyrhys' would be a better name. It sounds like 'faeries'."

"Take it up with Mor," she snapped. "I'm done with this topic."

Thankfully, he relented. "Alright then." A pause. "About- About what you said about everybody dying." She made a noncommittal noise, but cast him a narrow eyed glance from the side. He swallowed. "How long does the average immortal live?" Was she imagining the fear in his voice? She didn't like doubting the information this new body gave her.

She hummed in thought, then said, "It depends when and where they live. And how. Disease epidemics usually wipe out the young most effectively - meaning under one hundred years old, that is - since their immune systems haven't learned to cope with as many illnesses as they elders' have. During war, typically it's the ones aged between two and three hundred that get used as cannon fodder, since they're young enough to still have clear, sharp minds, but lack the experience of the generals, who're generally around five hundred. And then there's the faeries who die because their mental state unravels. The pressure of the information they've gathered over the years typically begins to drive them mad."

"And how old are they?" Definitely wasn't imagining it.

"Eight hundred at the very least. Usually closer to eleven hundred. Again, it depends on their lifestyles. If their life has been inescapably dull for a century, it's likely to speed up the process, but on the other hand, High Lords' minds typically deteriorate the fastest under the weight of everything they've seen and done, and the responsibility that still weighs them down." She paused then, and added, almost hesitantly. "Mainly those who've somehow or other lost their mates."

"And what about you."

She finally took her eyes off Dorian to look at Varian then. "If you wanted to ask when I think I'll die, you should've just said it outright." She said baldly. "So I can answer simply: I don't know. My situation is unique - as you well know - and no studies of previous lives could ever predict how mine will play out." She took a shuddering breath. "So I don't want to talk about it anymore."

He was studying her now, and his dark eyes held understanding. In moments like this, Amren remembered why he was renowned for being the most intelligent and compassionate Captain of the Guard the Summer Court had ever had. "You're scared of the fact that you don't know."

"So what if I am? Uncertainty is nobody's best friend." She leaned in closer, unless their lips were breaths apart and she could count the lattice-works of brown in his eyes. A part of her wanted to kiss him, but she hissed, "And I. Don't. Want. To talk. About this. Anymore." She leaned backwards again. "Clear?"

He took a wobbly step back, and blinked like he was shaking off a spell. She wanted to smirk at the lust still simmering on his face. But he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly and said, "Crystal."

With a grunt, Amren turned back to look at Dorian.

"Shit."

He'd accidentally set Batty on fire.

Varian rushed forwards to help. But Amren held up a hand to stop him.

Because even as Dorian slipped his other hand round his beloved toy and squeezed it tighter, the fire flickering at the tip of the bat's right wing neither grew nor shrank. And even when a breeze slipped through the open window and stirred the baby's onyx hair, the flame didn't gutter, let alone go out.


	8. Castle and Townhouse

**Thanks to isabelas, Anonymous, Oirasse, TheBookishSoul, and RIP Molly for all your kind reviews!**

 **isabelas: I love Dorian too! He'd be my favourite character, except I love Elide so much. And I wasn't really connecting it to Throne of Glass via the flames - it was just the names I was going for. The flames just seemed like a dramatic way to cut short Amren and Varian's conversation. And I'd just like to say thank you for always, always reviewing!**

 **Anonymous: Rambling's no problem! I ramble a lot anyway. And I smiled so much to hear that you liked it. :)**

 **Oirasse: Yeah, I was thinking that maybe she wouldn't like not knowing much about herself even after living for so long. And I'll try to slip Batty in sometime in the future, but I don't have any ideas yet. Thanks for your wonderful review!**

 **TheBookishSoul: Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!**

 **RIP Molly: Thank you! :) I probably won't be continuing that particular oneshot, but I've got plenty more to write, so I'm not stopping any time soon!**

 **This is partly based off a request from Maha about Feysand cooking. . . It deviated a bit. My oneshots always deviate from the original idea. And I've now learned that a) I love making headcanons about the rest of the world Prythian's in and it's mythology, b) I'm obsessed with making Throne of Glass references and at this point nothing will stop me, and c) that documentary I watched about King Ludwig II of Bavaria and his castles I watched a few weeks ago impacted me a lot more than I thought. . .**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the ACOTAR series; it belongs to SJM.**

* * *

 _Castle and Townhouse_

"Feyre?" Rhys asked when she staggered into the townhouse one day sweaty, dishevelled, and significantly ruffled. "Are you okay? Why are you covered in blood?" A moment, then, "Where have you even been for the past week?"

His High Lady and mate vomited all over the floor in response.

"Don't ask," she panted. "You really don't want to know."

"Oh, I assure you. I do." He smirked, but he still looked faintly worried.

"Well then it's possible I went looking for Bryaxis on the continent after searching the whole of Prythian and Hybern and coming up empty handed only to come across a certain monster-sorcerer- _thing_ that happens to be related to a certain Weaver and Carver only to find out that he's the sorcerer Vassa and the other firebird girls are under the control of and sort of kind of maybe got into a minor fight with him and I don't even know what happened after that."

She took a deep breath. Rhys eyed her carefully, then approached and laid a hand on her shoulder. "That sounds. . ." he began, eyeing the blood coating her skin - and the feathers and rubble, now that he could see it. The scent of it was cooking his nostrils inside out. "Simply wonderful."

Feyre just sighed in response. Rhys began to knead her back gently, and she let out an embarrassingly low moan at how nice it felt.

"Why don't you grab something to eat? Elain made cookies earlier and brought them over," he said softly. "I can run a bath for you, and you can tell me about your fascinating adventure in the morning. Or over dinner."

Feyre felt her shoulders droop. "Alright. That sounds nice. But nothing sexual tonight, I'm afraid. I'm not in the mood."

"Of course." He smirked again, then the look softened as he waved her in. She had the odd sense he was a gracious host showing a guest about his home. "The bath's just running."

Indeed, she could hear the faint gurgling sounds of the bath water swooshing out of the tap in the bathroom a few doors down. She'd always been curious about that trick; ever since the war she'd meant to ask him to teach her how he operated the plumbing system via magic. She could feel and control the water in the taps if she focused, and could get it to shove it way out, and if she harnessed Beron's fire she could heat the water, but she'd never mastered manipulating the actual _system_ the way he could; if she tried to use the water, she always got incredibly nervous she'd break the taps somehow.

She limped down the corridor, and into the bathroom. Rhys followed, and helped her peel off her sweaty, blood-stained clothes, and magicked them away. She was too tired to ask where they went even as the question bubbled into her mind, but her shields must have slipped, because Rhys answered anyway.

"Into one of those pocket realms for a bit." A smile quirked the side of his mouth. "They get washed and dry-cleaned there."

Slipping into the bath and letting the water envelop her up to her neck, she wasn't entirely sure he was joking.

After a good long soak, she no longer felt like her joints would creak in protest as she moved, and got up from the water. She grabbed one of her warmer robes and some underwear, wrapped her hair in a towel, and ventured out of the bathroom to find Rhys.

The scent of slowly roasting chicken assaulted her nose almost immediately, and she followed it, faintly surprised to find her mate standing in the kitchen, wearing a pale green apron, and holding a knife in his hand as he chopped vegetables, idly whistling to himself as he worked.

A breeze through the open window stirred the strands of her hair and carried her scent to where he stood. He whirled round, alerted to her presence, and smiled at her so broadly she felt an answering smile bloom on her own lips. "Feeling better?"

"Much."

"Hungry?"

"Very." She slid into a seat. "I didn't know you could cook."

He dropped the knife and clutched his heart in an over-dramatic fashion. She laughed to herself. "I'm offended, Feyre darling. I can do everything. Everything!" He wagged his finger at her. "And to a perfect standard as well, might I add. There's nothing your mate can't do-"

"Which explains why the chicken's burning," she cut in, smirking as he too caught scent of the burnt meat and scrambled to pull it out of the oven, swearing profusely.

"Fine, fine, fine." He conceded as he laid the plate holding the chicken on the table, and blew on his burnt fingers, hissing as he did. "I asked Azriel to teach me. Apparently he's especially good at hangover recipes, since he's had to look after Cassian for so many centuries." He shrugged. "As long as it wasn't Mor looking after him; she is _appalling_ at cooking."

Feyre smiled, and reached over to cut a slice of the chicken and dump it onto her own plate. She hesitantly took a bite. The burnt taste was bitter on her tongue, but if she tried she could ignore it, and the chicken itself was very nice. She was almost jealous.

Her husband's hopeful face was too sweet to destroy, so she opted for a half truth instead of the full one. "The chicken tastes lovely. If this is your first attempt at cooking, I can't wait to see what any future attempts might be." She swallowed, and took another bite. "Why'd you want to learn how to cook, anyway?"

He shrugged. "Why not? Even with all my High Lord duties, now that the war's over, and I have a lovely High Lady to split them with, I have a lot of free time on my hands. And it seems kind of ridiculous that I could live for nearly six hundred years but never learn how to cook." _And I wanted to be able to cook you a special meal for your birthday_ was a thought that fell past his mental shields without him noticing. She just smiled, and acted like she hadn't heard it.

"You'll have to teach me too, then. I wouldn't want to get jealous now."

He smirked. "Of course, Feyre darling." A pause. "So, do you want to talk about what happened whilst you were away, or. . ."

Feyre closed her eyes and groaned at the memory. "Well, I was just dropping by to say hello to Lucien where he's residing in what should been Queen Vassa's court, when one of my father's sailors who'd made himself a permanent home there idly commented that he'd seen a large black shape over the horizon one day when he was walking up near where the Wall used to be. I described the creature I was looking for to him; he said it matched the description." She paused for breath.

Rhys, who'd been standing stock still, pulled a chair out, sat down and leaned closer. "And?" He asked, oddly engrossed.

"It wasn't Bryaxis," she informed him. "Or if it was, I never found him." His shoulders slumped. "I travelled up North for a bit, until the land became rockier and steeper, and I was into a mountain range. I told myself, Alright, you know which mountains these are and you know they're too long and perilous for you to trek through on your own for too long. So I gave myself three days to move through them, and if I hadn't found him after three days, then I'd give up and look somewhere else."

She paused for breath. Rhys said, "You didn't find Bryaxis, you said. But then what _did_ you find?"

"Exactly what I mentioned earlier," she replied. "Just after I vomited." She wrinkled her nose as she cast a side glance towards the section of the carpet she'd puked on. it was clean now; no doubt Rhys worked his magic there too. "I found Koschei - the Bone Carver's sibling. And Vassa."

"Why was Vassa with Koschei?"

"He's the sorcerer we were told about - who holds her and all those other girls under the firebird curse." She shook her head, still not quite believing what she'd seen herself. "I just went through two mountains and- there he was. His castle, that is. This massive structure comprised of black stone arches and a bridge that spans a waterfall, so the light from their wings always catches in the spray and makes rainbows dance everywhere. Apparently he shares the Weaver's love of beauty. And there, living the lake below his bridges and arches, flew the firebirds."

Rhys didn't want to interrupt her now; her face was full of a quiet awe at how beautiful it had all been.

"They were stunning, Rhys. It was horrible what he'd done to them, kidnapping them and keeping them caged like- like they _were_ birds. Chained birds. And they _were_ chained, with this odd black rock that the entire castle was made of, chains hundreds of metres in length that let them fly all around the castle twice but just too short for them to fly above the peak and be visible to the outside world. And that _stone_ \- I stepped on the bridge, and every scrap of magic inside me recoiled. It was almost painful, except there was that part of me that was absolutely fine, and so I kept walking right into the belly of the beast."

" _Obsidian, the gods forbade, and stone they greatly feared_ ," Rhys murmured. "It was because you were Made," he explained at her baffled look. "Obsidian - it's like that stone from Hybern, in a way. It doesn't nullify a High Fae's powers, but rather repels all magic in this world. Even that of humans and lesser faeries. If Koschei built his castle of it, then it's very obvious why no one's been able to defeat him before, or stop him with his slavery. _His_ magic wouldn't be affected - he's not of this world. But anyone else's would. And who could hope to face such a beast without magic?"

"My father," Feyre said suddenly. "That would explain why he walked in unharmed; he doesn't have a drop of magic in his veins. It was his negotiating skills that kept him alive. And it's why I could walk to the centre of his keep and speak with Koschei; as you said, I was Made. I was as Other as he was."

"Did you kill him?"

Feyre shivered. "No. At least - I don't think so."

"Did you free the girls?"

She cut him a glare. "You really think I would have walked out of there without doing so?" He gave her a sheepish smile and rubbed the back of his head. She sighed. "I spoke with Koschei for a bit. He was. . . just as intense as his siblings. We talked, he scented them on me, and asked me a few questions about them. It was all very cordial; I think he sensed that my powers hadn't been nullified, and didn't want to test who would come out as a winner if we fought. So we just. . . talked.

"When I mentioned the Ouroborous, he insisted I show it to him. I don't quite know what his fascination with it was. He just really wanted to see where his sister had sourced all her beauty from, maybe. He seemed to have an obsession with beauty," Feyre mused idly. "I think that was why he did what he did. He didn't understand that girls weren't pretty dolls, and that anyone who can't fight back isn't fair game. I just think he wanted to create a beautiful environment, and he did. But it was ugly as well.

"Anyway, he looked into he Ouroborous, and. . . saw himself. As we all do. And it destroyed him.

"It was like he suddenly wanted to destroy himself, at least. A sort of otherworldly darkness billowed everywhere, and I ran out - out of that palace, as fast as I could. And safely on the mountainside, I watched as the castle tumbled down with him, and the chains binding the birds just - snapped. They had an instant to fly to the nearest ledge and hang on before they forcibly shifted back into humans. I shifted into Illyrian wings and caught some of them. Some - didn't survive." She swallowed.

"Vassa met me on the ridge. We trekked home together, and she let me grab something to eat at her palace. Then I winnowed back here. About halfway through I think everything that'd happened caught up to me." Another rueful glance at the carpet.

Rhys reached out a hand to brush a thumb over the back of hers. "And are you okay?"

She swallowed again. "I- I'm fine." Telling the story had taken more out of her than she'd expected. "I just- I need to paint it," she realised with a growing determination. She stood up, although half her food was still uneaten. "I need to paint the before - and the after. Because afterwards, it was just an ordinary valley. A deadly fall - but you couldn't see the feathers and blood of the girls who'd fallen and died. It was almost scarier than it had been when it was beautiful." She shook her head. "I need to paint it," she said again, to herself.

"Go and paint it, darling," Rhys told her, already reaching for her plate. "Let it all out." He leaned back again. "I'll be here for you when you do."


	9. In Between

**Thanks to SparklelyWonderful, TheBookishSoul, acourtofrhys, franklyherondale, and wavingthroughawindow for reviewing!**

 **SparklelyWonderful: Thank you so much! I certainly have. I'm a horrible cook. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **TheBookishSoul: Thank you! :)**

 **acourtofrhys: Thank you so much!**

 **franklyherondale: Thank you! Your review made me smile so much. I'm glad you've liked them :)**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thanks so much! Here's some Nessian, and I've got lots of ideas for Elucien/Elriel, so I'll be sure to write them soon. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **This prompt was from Fire Breathing Queen, and I guess it could fit into the timeline with Cranky Old Aunt? To be honest, they're all part of the same timeline. But this would be before COA, before Dorian was born. Sorry if the writing feels a little bit... off. I hope you like it.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the ACOTAR characters, nor the quotes used. Or the world. It all belongs to Sarah J. Maas.**

* * *

 _In Between_

The library of the House of Wind only had two seats at the moment, courtesy of Amren and Varian having their exchanges getting a little heated and their magic out of control. Cassian was sure Feyre was exploiting this fact when he and Nesta turned up to the library at the same time only to find the only single seat taken.

Then again, that was probably paranoia. Since the War, Feyre had mysteriously stopped her not-so-subtle attempts to get her ships together. It was obvious that it made her happy when Nesta and Cassian would get along, or when Azriel took Elain flying (personally, the idea of those two together confused Cassian. Azriel loved Mor and Mor loved Azriel, and had for hundreds of years. . . right?) but she never did anything to interfere. Not that Cassian was complaining (although he certainly missed having her make him spend time with Nesta), even if it was so strange that he'd commented it to Rhys once.

Rhys had just frowned, and said, "Feyre doesn't want to intrude on anything unless it's necessary."

Where this sudden change of character had come from, Cassian had no idea. But it was odd.

The way she was sitting in the chair further extinguished his suspicions: she was fast asleep, a book on her lap, her pregnant belly just visible protruding amongst the blankets she was smothered in. He was used to this; they all were. She was only four months pregnant, but she was already showing, and already getting sudden bouts of intense sleepiness that had led to more than a few cancelled training sessions.

He was also, he was proud to say, used to the faint look of tenderness that caressed Nesta's features as she saw her sister sleeping there.

It had been three years since the war. Three long but precious years in which he'd been slowly starting to read her expressions and mannerisms. She wore a façade of ice - but ice was translucent. And he was just starting to make out the shapes beneath the surface.

This tenderness. . . Nesta rarely wore it for anyone, save Elain. But he'd been noticing she looked at Feyre with it a lot more frequently as well now. Maybe they'd talked about their differences and settled it, or maybe their new environments had let them grow to love each other as sisters should; Cassian didn't know. He just knew that they made one hell of a terrifying team when they set their shared minds to something.

He wanted to smile at that tenderness now. But then her gaze moved to the single sofa and something in it froze.

Cassian wasn't sure whether to smile or frown.

But to his surprise, Nesta just blinked blithely, selected a book from the shelf and sat on the sofa. He did the same, and sat next to her, watching her carefully. She carried on reading, without giving him another glance.

So. . . This wasn't the mood where she wanted nothing to do with him, and slapped him if he came within reach. This wasn't the mood where she would have cordial conversations with him or act in any way like she liked him. This wasn't the mood where she just didn't care.

She was neutral, and trusting, and. . . he found he liked it.

So he just smiled to himself, and let himself be absorbed by the book.

* * *

The problem arose when Nesta's head dropped onto his shoulder.

He tensed instantly.

 _Fuck._

 _Shit._

 _Fuck fuck fuck._

Did she mean to? Was she taunting him? Would he be in for another knee to the balls if he put his arm round her?

Probably.

Slowly, slowly, slowly (so as not to disturb her, or let her know he was looking, he told himself) he peeped down at her.

She was sound asleep.

 _Well._

What was he supposed to do now!?

He cast a pleading glance at Feyre, but she was still asleep. Of course. The Cauldron would never make it that easy for him. Why would it, when it had seen fit to throw Nesta Archeron into his life in the first place, and change everything forever? It was not known for it's mercy - and certainly not when its power resided within a person such as Nesta Archeron.

 _Nesta. . ._

He shivered as he remembered what the Bone Carver had said about her. _Nesta_.

 _The rock and darkness and the sea beyond whispered to me, Lord of Bloodshed._

 _They shuddered in fear. . . trembled._

 _She took something - something precious._

 _Precious. . ._

 _Precious. . ._

 _Precious. . ._

He hadn't realised he hadn't been breathing until Nesta's head slipped off his shoulder and into his lap. She still didn't wake. A breath shuddered out of him. She must have been absolutely exhausted by the day's training.

And it felt. . . nice. Nice, to sit beside her and keep her safe whilst she slept - to _know_ that she trusted him to keep her safe whilst she slept. To come in here after a hard day training female Illyrians and read alongside her, ever cordial, no kicking of the balls. It was really, really nice.

 _Precious. How precious she is._

He swallowed as, unbidden, more of the Bone Carver's poisonous words rose to mind. The creature had been dead three years for Cauldron's sake, yet he still found himself tormented by dreams of darkness and prisons and great cauldrons' maws coming to swallow up the world. . .

Smoke and shadow and claws in the bottom of a library tearing into a white and a black raven like they were training dolls, and the blood that spilled out was hay. . . The teeth coming at him out of the darkness when he was young and foolish and unafraid of monsters. . .

Nesta's white face peering up at him out of that darkness, hidden behind a toppled stack of books and records, only this time she wasn't unharmed, wasn't _fine_ , she was-

She was-

 _Nesta_.

 _How lovely she is - new as a fawn and yet ancient as the sea._

 _A queen, as my sister once was._

 _How the wind moans her name._

It was true. He'd known it was true then, and he knew it now. Flying. . . flying wasn't the same anymore. Not since he'd gone flying with her, and the very stars had seemed to sing, even if she'd claimed to hate it later.

 _Terrible and proud; beautiful as a winter sunrise_.

They had been his first thoughts upon meeting her: Terrible, for how she'd treated her sister, and how she treated them. Proud, for how she refused to apologise for it. And yet, beautiful as well. As beautiful as the sunrises over the Illyrian camps in the winter months - the few scraps of beauty he managed to cherish in the months where he'd thought he would freeze to death, before Rhys's mother had taken him in.

It was why he'd been so unnerved by the Carver's words.

 _Nesta. Nes-ta._

 _How she calls to you. . ._

Like a song. Like a summoning. Like a promise of hope and light and warmth, although he knew that ice was the more likely option. Ice or fire - there was no in between. Not with her. It was exhilarating.

 _What did she do, drowning in the ageless dark? What did she take? What came out was not what went in._

Sometimes he fancied he could hear her heartbeat from the other side of the House of Wind. That he could distinguish it from everyone else's. It was always more erratic, louder, more demanding to be heard. He could hear it now, like the pounding of an Illyrian drum of war.

Sometimes, he had nightmares about what she might've seen. What she might've suffered. He knew she still didn't use baths, and relied on the strange shower contraption Feyre had had installed for her. He truly had no idea what she'd been through, her secrets her own, locked behind an iron gate. But he could imagine, and it suffocated him sometimes - that feeling of drowning and drowning and drowning until your very being was consumed. . .

He breathed, his heart stuttering, and Nesta took a similarly ragged breath in her sleep. He glanced down at her, heart cracking, and ran his fingers through her hair.

It was not soft and silky, as described in the romance novels. It was matted and tangled from a day in the wind, and stuck together in clumps. His fingers got snared in one such clump and he idly began to untangle it.

There was no lightning strike, as described by those novels, either. Just the trembling sensation of skin against skin, and the delicate warmth that told him: This is real. This is true. This is good. He could feel his pulse beat in his fingertips.

Her eyelids fluttered at the tranquillity of the moment, and then a realisation speared though him - like the lightning bolt he'd been promised.

He'd never asked Rhys what a mating bond felt like, never sought any knowledge on the matter, but. . . Looking down at Nesta, he knew it was true. There was a hole in his heart where the knowledge had struck, like it had punched right through him and left only destruction in its wake, and it _ached_. _Cauldron_ , how had Rhys _survived_ being mates with Feyre, knowing she hated him, knowing she loved his enemy? This was painful enough, and it was-

 _Nesta_.

Cauldron. Oh, Cauldron. Oh, by the-

It was like he was seeing her for the first time.

Golden hair that danced like firelight, grey-blue eyes like ice, high cheekbones like imperial arches and skin like pale marble. The passionate glint to her eye, the soft tenderness on her face, the strength those slim limbs disguised, the intense _stubbornness_ that was-

Nesta.

. . .only a mating bond would make him spout poetry like Rhys whilst drunk.

He groaned, and pulled his hands up to his face, rubbing his eyes. They were burning.

But the motion seemed to have roused Nesta - _his mate_ \- and she arched her back like a cat and opened her eyes slowly, blinking at the bright light streaming through the window. She seemed to realise where she was, and stiffened momentarily, before relaxing, and then she met his eyes. He hadn't looked away from her once.

Whatever shield she'd been holding on her emotions. . . It cracked. Then slipped. Then it was gone. And it was just Nesta looking at him.

Here was Nesta Archeron in front of him, meeting his gaze without venom, feeling something like the intensity he was feeling as their hearts beat as one.

Mates.

Mates.

 _Mates_.

She opened her mouth. She closed it after a moment. Then she opened it again. "Tell me," she said, and her voice was a croak. "How do mates work again?"

He could barely speak himself. "They're partners - chosen by the Cauldron. Fated love matches. Sometimes they're not- not compatible." He saw her eyes flicker the exact moment she thought of Elain and Lucien, and saw an image of them in his head, but it was gone too quickly to discern whether it was his own memory or Nesta's.

"And are we-" Her voice cracked. "Are we compatible?" She bit her lip.

His gaze dropped to that lip, and he had never wanted to kiss someone so much in his life. "I hope so," he choked out.

That was all the answer she needed, apparently. Because she leaned forwards, and kissed him, and that pesky frog in his throat dissolved and he kissed her back. His hand crept into her hair and her hands crept around his shoulders, careful not to touch his wings - when had she noticed he didn't like anyone, even those with good intent, even his _mate_ , touching his wings? Since the War? Longer? - and drew him in closer.

Stars more beautiful than the night sky of Velaris exploded behind his eyes, and Nesta tasted of fire, and ice, and everything in between.


	10. Monsters

**Thanks to Fire Breathing Queen, wavingthroughawindow, SparklelyWonderful, franklyherondale, Oirasse, Fuguruma, and Guest for reviewing!**

 **Fire Breathing Queen: Thank you! It was a great prompt. I'll add the oneshot to the list!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you so much! He is wonderful when he's in love. I'd love to explore more about Mor as well, but my brain has a frustrating lack of ideas for oneshots about her. But I'm sure I'll think of something eventually, so there should be one soon!**

 **SparklelyWonderful: Thanks! :)**

 **franklyherondale: Tbh I didn't remember Feyre was there until halfway through either, and I couldn't stop laughing once I'd realised it. Thanks for your review! Your words always make me smile.**

 **Oirasse: Thank you!**

 **Fuguruma: Thanks! That's such a high compliment!**

 **Guest: I didn't actually ship Nessian for so long, then I started writing about them for a bit, and now I love them. I'm glad you liked it!**

 **This chapter was requested by a Guest who reviewed way back on the first oneshot, so I'm sorry it took so long :/. Also, I loathe Tamlin with every fibre of my being, but there might be some hints of** ** _niceness_** **coming through in this, because it's from his point of view. I tried to show how much of a tool he is, but I don't know how well I did. I'm sorry if he does come off as nice.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the A Court of Thorns and Roses series; it belongs to Sarah J. Maas.**

* * *

 _Monsters_

It all started with the annual High Lords' meeting.

(And High Ladies'. He should remember that, before Feyre and Viviane - trust Kallias to let his wife control him - attacked him. He wouldn't put it past either of them.)

Of course it started with that meeting; that was the only time of year he saw _them_. They made efforts to avoid and ignore him otherwise, and he did the same. It was too painful.

Although, sometimes her absence was painful as well. In the months she'd lived at the manor, her presence had been as resolute as that of the roses and thorns, and now she was gone, the blood from the pricks was gone, but so was the sweetness of the blossom.

Sometimes he saw how his sentries still distrusted him, and how deep the cracks she'd put in his court had penetrated, and he would hate her. He would hate her for the damage she'd handed him in return for his love and hospitality. He would hate her when he woke from nightmares in which a whip cracked across his own back, instead of the sentry's, and he had to clear away the mess of weeds and wreckage in what was once her chambers.

She'd left him. She'd betrayed him. She'd ruined him.

He remembered a quote he'd once heard: _The worst monsters are the ones that look like friends_.

She was a monster.

But then he would wake from nightmares where he heard the sickening thud of her back hitting the bookshelf, and the shattering of paint and wood as she shielded. Nightmares of her throwing that bone spear at Amarantha, only she was throwing it at him this time, and as the mud splattered into his eyes he heard the sound of Rhysand's laughter until it morphed into screams, agonising screams, and Feyre was kneeling beside her mate's corpse again on that battlefield and saying _Anything anything I'll give you anything_ and he had that same moment of indecision he'd had in real life, only this time he did what he'd wanted to do: He'd spat on Rhysand's corpse and walked away.

He'd wake gasping, sheets damp, and he'd rush to the bathroom to vomit. He had no doubt some of the remaining servants could hear him through the walls, but no one came to help him.

Of course not. He'd never helped Feyre during her time here, so why should he be helped in return?

Feyre was not a monster. Feyre was Fae, but with a human heart. She was _good_.

And so was Rhysand.

 _He_ was the monster in this narrative.

He shied away from this truth, snapping at any servants who flinched away from him, or anyone who seemed to fear him. He destroyed several more studies until he learned that violence only supported the truth he was lying to himself about. So he resorted to words, harsh words, and systematically ripped apart anyone who challenged him, feared him, until they no longer feared him.

And a lack of fear would lead to love, yes?

Feyre was the monster who'd taken the love of his people and betrayed it. He was the one who'd prove himself worthy of it. He _was_ worthy of it. He was their High Lord; they owed him their allegiance and love and loyalty.

Then why, though, did he feel so alone?

People were always alone, he assured himself. Especially special people like himself, High Lords, who nobly shouldered the burden of running the court and sacrificing himself for the welfare of it. Except Rhysand, who relied on inadequate female monsters like Feyre and Amren and Morrigan to run his court for him, and terrorise the world with their monstrosity.

Dreamers were only monsters with pretty promises after all, weren't they?

And so the months had passed, until the High Lords (and High Ladies, and High Ladies, and High Ladies, get it right, Tamlin) were called to meet up again to maintain decent relations between the courts. The War had thrown everything into perspective, and suddenly the High Fae had found it in their interest to remain on good terms with each other, lest another feud break out. Tamlin suspected that same reason was the only one that had led Tarquin had rescinded the blood rubies; it certainly wasn't for the sake of friendship.

He told himself.

They'd decided to meet in the Dawn Court again, since as Rhysand had put it when trying to flatter Thesan into a state of foolishness: "The hospitality was lovely when we met there before."

This time, Tamlin didn't want to turn up late. That had left a bad impression. (All Rhysand's fault. All of it.) So he turned up remarkably early, for him, only to find that the High Lords (and High Lady) of the Solar Courts were already there.

They weren't present when he'd winnowed in, but Thesan's lover, the Peregryn Captain of the Guard he dabbled with, informed him they were sparring in the training grounds, if he'd like to join them. If not, they had rooms prepared.

Tamlin had shucked off his baggage and handed it to a passing servant. He would join them sparring, and see what all the fabled might of the North was about. Show Rhysand that he could knock him on his ass as easily as he could Amarantha.

But it wasn't Rhysand he saw when he stepped outside.

No, it was two different monsters. That brute Cassian, Rhysand's general, with his scarred wings out and flaring every time he took a punch, his teeth flashing grins as he did. And Feyre, significantly outmatched in skill, but making up for what she lacked in determination. And. . . she had wings.

 _Illyrian_ wings. Like the ones Lucien had described her to have when he'd encountered her in the Night Court forest.

He couldn't move as he saw her, and found his hands unconsciously clenching into fists each time Cassian punched her. No, no, no - she was a monster. A monster. A monster.

A monster he'd loved, once.

Feyre moved with the same odd grace most females from the Night Court appeared to have, despite what must be extra weight on her back from the wings. Wings she'd shaped with a kernel of _his_ magic, he realised. He didn't know how to feel about that.

 _Monster_. He didn't know if the voice in his head was talking about himself or Feyre.

Finally, Cassian finished the session by performing a complicated manoeuvre that somehow struck her arms, her abdomen and her legs all at once, and she went down hard with a small cry. She landed with an _oomph_ and the wings disappeared in her shock.

Cassian stepped behind her, and tapped the spot on her back where the wings had protruded with his foot. "I think that might be a safety hazard whilst flying." He commented dryly. "One minute they're there, then. . . _poof_."

"You don't say." Feyre replied, equally as dryly. She twisted round to clamber to her feet, but froze whilst on her knees.

She'd looked over in his direction. She'd seen him. He stopped breathing.

It was, he thought momentarily, fitting. Fitting, that the next time he saw her she'd be on her knees. Grovelling and apologising would've been preferable, but-

Would it? Would it really?

For a moment, she blanched, and that look chucked him back in time to the moments he'd exploded. The first time she'd shielded, then the second she'd gone slamming into the shelf. He knew now that it had been intentional, but. . . She'd looked like that Under the Mountain, scared and pale and unsure. She'd looked like that when she'd first come to the manor, alone and caged and desperate. She'd looked like that when he'd winnowed into that High Lords' (and High Ladies') meeting, terrified and betrayed and _angry_.

How the fuck she managed to convey all that with one look, he'd never know. But Feyre's human heart held so much emotion he'd always thought it would kill her. It probably still would.

The moment passed, though, and then she was on her feet and giving him a stiff nod of acknowledgement, and Rhysand was suddenly by her side, but slightly behind, his hand under her elbow, protective, but letting her protect herself too. It hit Tamlin how perfect they looked.

Rhysand and his High Lady.

Feyre and her High Lord.

Night Triumphant and the Stars Eternal.

Monsters? Or Dreamers?

Or both?

And that there, he thought bitterly, was the beating heart of the matter.

Feyre smiled politely at him - the same smile she'd offered Jurian and the Hybern royals eons and eons ago when they'd come to scout out the Wall during the War. "Tamlin. Glad you could make it."

She never specified _who_ was glad.

A sudden epiphany: he needed to talk to her. Needed to sort this out. Needed to talk to someone who wouldn't cower in fear - yes, fear, because seeing the Captain of the Guard look at Thesan, seeing Cassian and Feyre interact, that was love, not fear, he only had fear - and would tell it to him frankly. He needed the truth.

"Can I have a word?"

Feyre raised her brows, and tilted her face to the sky, like she was enjoying the feel of a summer storm against her face. But there was no storm, only sun, and her eyes were still narrowed and fixed on him.

He could practically see the snarky reply forming on her lips. But she bit it back for some reason.

He only noticed that Rhysand had moved to take her hand when she squeezed it and let go. "Alright then." She strode towards him and led him away from the sparring ring, pointedly not touching him, and towards what looked like a small garden near the grounds of the sunstone palace. She waved her hand at a wrought iron bench placed below a trellis of hanging flowers, and he awkwardly took a seat. He felt slightly snubbed when she didn't sit next to him. "Talk."

She stood opposite him, arms crossed, eyes oddly stern. He struggled to find the words. Instead, his eyes drifted upwards towards the flowers above him; they were oddly eye catching. Different to those of the Spring Court. He wondered: was it the natural power he felt thrumming through the atmosphere, that of the High Lord of Dawn, that made all the flowers in the palace gardens the colours of a dusky sky? Or were they bred and engineered for this purpose?

These particular flowers were star shaped, their heads hanging down like love-lies-bleeding, their petals dusted with gold. Each was layered on top of the other - it reminded Tamlin of the frills and ruffles of a Spring Court dress. The colour began a pale violet where it met the vine-like stem, but slowly faded to crimson at the tip of the flowers. He imagined they looked like they were dipped in blood.

Feyre cleared her throat, and stared daggers at him. "Talk."

"I-" He began. "I'm sorry?"

Her face hardened. "Do you even understand what you're apologising for? What you did wrong?" He hesitated for a bit too long. "I didn't think so." He opened his mouth to stop her, but she continued on. "Do _not_ interrupt me. What did you expect to get out of this conversation? Forgiveness? The knowledge of how to act better next time?" She shook her head.

"I can't undo hundreds of years of whatever upbringing you had that made you think treating me - and Lucien - like that was in anyway okay. Not in a short conversation, at least. It's not possible, Tamlin." She said his name reluctantly.

He must have looked pretty desperate, because she winced, and rubbed her arm.

"Just - treat females like your equals. That's all I can say. Treat _everyone_ like your equals. The sun doesn't shine out of your ass, Tamlin. Treat other people like it's your privilege to be near them - not the other way round. Because, quite frankly, a lot of the time you're a _horrible_ person to be near."

She shook her head again. "Tell yourself that every moment of every day for hundreds of years. _They are my equals._ Maybe that will help. Maybe it won't. But if you get told something often enough you start to believe it." She smiled at those words, but it wasn't a smile aimed at him. Looking at it, he somehow knew she was thinking about Rhysand. "I don't know if that's true or not, but it's worth a shot."

Silence fell as he tucked the knowledge away. "I thought you said you'd forgiven me."

Her mouth tightened. "I _said_ I had. I hadn't. I still haven't. Faeries can lie, after all." She said, very, very slowly, "Let me make this clear: I said I forgave you for my own peace of mind. Not for you. Never for you.

"I realised that _I do not have time_ to hold hatred in my heart. And yes, my heart is human, and yes, I'm still very much in the mind-set that I won't live forever. But it's true. The world isn't big enough for hate to breed and take up space inside it. And I will _never_ forget what you did to me, nor will I _ever_ forgive it, or not condemn it for what it was: abuse. It was abuse, plain and simple. And it was unspeakably, inarguably wrong." She shrugged. "But I refuse to let it ruin my future by letting it consume me. I will try to move on. It won't be easy, but I will. And I'd suggest you do as well."

"I saved Rhysa-"

"Yes, you did. Thank you for that. But you still have a lot of shit left unredeemed, and one large action doesn't make up for millions of tiny slights and actions that hurt the people around you."

"I loved you. I still do-"

"I know, Tamlin." Her eyes didn't look angry now. They just looked tired. "But your love is a poison. And it's deadly to everyone involved."

She glanced down, and started in shock when she realised her hands were still wrapped from her training session with Cassian. She began to unwrap them. He was oddly fascinated with watching the blood that bloomed above her knuckles where the skin had split. "Try to be a better person, Tamlin. That's all there is to it. Don't hit people, don't insult them, don't treat them as lesser than you. Because they're not. You're their High Lord - you serve them. They don't serve you."

She glanced downwards, and bent down to pick something up. Tamlin looked, and saw one of the hanging blossoms had fallen off, and the two end petals had detached from the rest of the flower. Feyre picked up the blue petal and tucked it behind her ear. He didn't have to wonder why she hadn't taken the red one, or why the violet colour had attracted her.

"I hope you find happiness," she finished. "Eventually. Everyone deserves happiness eventually." She looked at him and his heart twanged: She looked radiant in that moment, like a perfect painting of tranquillity. But the Illyrian training gear reminded him she was a weapon, not a flower. And comparing a female to an inanimate object probably wasn't a good start to treating females equally. "But right now, you're a monster, Tamlin."

Her stance as she walked away was exhausted yet. . . relieved. She'd faced Amarantha, kept her family alive, faced the King of Hybern, and become High Lady of the Night Court. And yet, Tamlin realised, he was the hardest challenge she'd ever had to face.

 _The worst monsters are the ones that look like friends_.

Monster, indeed.


	11. Father of Fire and Light

**Thanks to franklyherondale, wavingthroughawindow, rowaelinfeyrhys, Guest (1), Guest (2), TheBookishSoul, Oirasse, and santana for reviewing!**

 **franklyherondale: Thank you! I'm glad I managed to make him seem real, because we know that he** ** _did_** **think that what he was doing was right, even if it was unspeakably wrong, and I'll never forgive him for it. It was very strange to write from his perspective, but I hope I did okay!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thanks you so much! Your reviews always make me smile for ages. :) I'm sorry I made you feel sorry for him, because that was** ** _not_** **my intention, but as it's from his POV, with the way he is, he's probably going to believe himself deserving of sympathy anyway. I agree that there's hope for him in the future... just very very far in the future. (Btw can I just say that I love your username? Every time I read it I start singing the song out loud :))**

 **rowaelinfeyrhys: Thank you! :) It definitely needed finishing.**

 **Guest (1): Sorry I made you wait for it for so long, though. And that's true - I'd completely forgotten about that. Oops.**

 **Guest (2): Thanks! :):):) He is a difficult character.**

 **TheBookishSoul: Thank you so much!**

 **Oirasse: Yeah, that's how I would've imagined it as well, but I couldn't fit all of it in one oneshot :(. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **santana: Thank you! :)**

 **This one is set sometime before Cranky Old Aunt and after Child of Light and Fire, and is about how Helion finds out about his son. Enjoy!**

* * *

 _Father of Fire and Light_

Feyre knew with a pure and piercing certainty that Rhys was drunk.

They'd gone out for a night in Velaris with the Inner Circle, Lucien and Helion, who'd wanted to "see the city you've all kept so secret for so long." And as she was a month pregnant and couldn't drink anyway, she'd been saddled with the duty of making sure no one else drank themselves into oblivion. She'd thought she'd be able to trust her husband to help with that. Apparently she'd been wrong.

"I love you, Feyre!" Rhys shouted. He'd been babbling for at least ten minutes now, and Feyre was only glad the people at Rita's respected their High Lord enough to keep their distance, although she could see the people who knew him best were howling with laughter. Cassian certainly was. "And I love our little Dorian!"

"How do you know it's a boy?" Mor asked. She, too, was highly amused by this; Feyre could tell she was avidly trying to capture every moment so she could crow to Rhys about it later. She half expected her cousin-in-law to pull out a sheaf of paper and start taking notes. "It's only a month old; it's probably not even developed a heart yet, let alone genitals."

"I just know!" Feyre's mate said in response. The High Lady wanted to cringe and chuckle at the same time. "I just know!"

"That impossible though," Helion butted in. Feyre would have scowled at the thoroughly amused expression he wore, except it seemed to be his resting face. "You can't just-"

"Just because you don't know about your son doesn't mean I don't know about mine!" Rhys yelled. Feyre froze. She met Lucien's eye for a split second. He looked as shocked as she did, and _angry_.

 _This is not how Lucien wanted him to find out_.

Lucien had come back from Beron's funeral a few months ago somehow changed, although she hadn't been able to discern what the change was. Only a few weeks before, when she'd offhandedly mentioned to him that Helion was coming to visit, had he told her what his mother had told him.

"I know," she'd said.

" _What?_ "

"I worked it out - when I first met Helion. You look very similar. Rhys knows, too."

"And you didn't tell me? Does Helion know?"

"I didn't want to intrude - it's your business, not mine." Indeed, she'd had enough of intruding on other people's business for life. A part of her was still terrified Lucien would find out she'd gone inside his mind, and condemn her for it. "But no. I don't think he knows. It didn't seem right to tell him at the time."

They'd discussed it further, and Feyre had promised to let Lucien or his mother tell Helion, and she would keep that secret for as long as they needed. She'd told Rhys to do the same, but _apparently_ a drunk Rhysand forgot certain things. She was going to kill him later.

"Don't be ridiculous," Helion laughed. "I don't have a son; you know this. My advisers are all pushing for me to marry and sire an heir before I die. I've complained about it to you before. A little confused, are we, Rhysand?"

He was teasing. He didn't believe Rhys. Feyre and Lucien started to relax.

But apparently, drunk Rhys wasn't quite done yet.

"That's what you think! But Feyre and I know the truth, right Feyre?" It was almost comical that he managed to use correct grammar when he was in this sort of state. "Right?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she told him in a tone that could be interpreted as frank. She was a good actress, she knew; she'd managed to fool the majority of the Spring Court for long enough, not to mention the mask she had to wear as High Lady of the Night Court. But her friends knew her too well.

"What aren't you telling us, Feyre?" It was Cassian, leaning forwards with a taunting grin. Mor looked equally as interested, though Amren just looked bored, and Lucien appeared to be trying to sink back into the wall and avoid being seen. She caught Azriel's eye. He wore a knowing grin. She sighed. Of course he knew about it - he'd probably known about it since before she had. "Helion has a _son_?"

Helion, though, was looking at her with an extremely intense look. "It's not true, is it?" He asked her directly.

"Of course not." Her voice wavered, and she had to physically stop herself from making it sound like a question. But it might've been passable, despite the scrutiny her friends were subjecting her to, if Rhys had not added:

"Yes it is!"

Helion's face eclipsed in shock; Amren and Azriel smirked; Mor and Cassian's eyes blew wide. Lucien was glaring at Feyre to _do something_. She glowered at her mate. "I am going to kill you."

"Why?" He asked flippantly, but he seemed to come to his senses very suddenly as he saw their companions' shocked faces. "Oh." He stood up, and started backing away. "Oh."

"Rhysand-" She made a grab for him, but he winnowed, and was gone in a heartbeat. She growled. Now she was the only one left to explain.

Mor glanced at Helion; seeing he wasn't going to say anything, she was the one who asked, "Feyre? What was he talking about?"

 _Shit._ Shit shit shit. _This is_ not _how Lucien wanted him to find out!_ "Um. . ." _I'll actually kill you, Rhysand._

"Do. I. Have. A. Son?" Helion's tone was accusatory, like Feyre had been the one to hide him away. "Yes or no will suffice." The voice of the High Lord.

She looked at them each individually to cover up the desperate glance she sent Lucien. His lips were pursed, his brow creased, but he nodded at her and smiled with a small shrug, as if to say, _Tell him. I'm right here, and you can't really get out of this, can you?_

Oh, she was _definitely_ going to kill Rhysand later.

"Yes," she ground out through her teeth. "You do."

Helion blanched and physically recoiled into Amren, who was like a statue next to him. Cassian had stopped laughing altogether now; he was looking between them worriedly. "Feyre-"

"Who." Helion's tone indicated it wasn't a question. The High Lady just looked to Mor's left - to where Lucien now leaned forward and gave a rueful smile. Helion's eyes fell on him, and went wide. Lucien rubbed the back of his neck. " _Lucien?_ " He took a shuddering breath as the male nodded. "But. . . _how_?"

"I think you're starting to realise how yourself, Father," he said quietly in response. In the silence that fell across the table, he stirred his drink. Mor gave a small cry of shock, and when she saw the small smile on Azriel's face, she tossed him a glare. He shrunk back slightly.

But Helion had eyes only for his son. "How long have you known?"

Lucien jutted his chin out. "A few months. Mother told me at Beron's funeral." _Beron._ Not Father. Beron.

Helion cut Feyre a venomous look before fixating his eyes on his son again. "How does _she_ know? How long has she known? I assume it was you who told Rhysand," he added to Feyre. She nodded, even though she knew he wasn't looking at her.

Her friend said calmly, "She told me she's known ever since she met you - we look similar, apparently. Personally, I don't see it." He smirked slightly, but even now Feyre could see Mor's eyes tracing both their faces and the surprise that told her she saw the resemblance too. "That was why she looked so shocked. She told Rhys mind to mind when he told her to _stop_ looking so shocked. So _please_ don't criticise her for keeping a secret that wasn't hers to tell, and deciding to be a good friend."

Lucien's gaze moved to hers then, and they held eye contact for a moment. He dipped his head in acknowledgement. _You are a better friend to me, Feyre, than I ever was to you._

Helion gave her a short look of appraisal, but soon enough looked back at Lucien. "You're my son," he said quietly. Lucien nodded. "My son." He looked up at them all, and for a moment he was not Helion Spell-Cleaver, High Lord of the Day Court; he was a young father, inexperienced and scared. "I- I don't know where to go from here. I don't know how to react."

"None of us do," Cassian murmured, but she didn't think Helion heard it. He still looked lost.

Feyre stood up. She couldn't bear the awkwardness of it; she knew too much about estranged family members and absent parents to be able to sit through this unaffected. _Rhys? Where are you?_

 _Not saying._ His mental voice had a distinctly childlike tone to it.

 _Why?_

 _You'll kill me._

She hid her smiled. _Not yet I won't. Please?_

 _No._

 _Pretty please?_

 _No._

"I'm going to look for Rhys," she said to Amren, since no one else seemed liable to listen. "I'll see you later." Amren raised an eyebrow, and wiggled her fingers in an oddly threatening wave.

 _How badly are things going down over there?_

She ran an eye over the others, then stepped out into the Velaris streets. _Better than I expected. No thanks to you._

He conveniently ignored that comment. _Are Helion and Lucien happy?_

 _I think so, Rhys,_ she said, and sighed out loud. Her breath crystallised in the cold night, and hung in front of her like a cloud. _I hope so._


	12. If Walls Had Eyes

**Sorry it took so long to update - I've been away. I still won't be able to update any other stories just yet, but here's a chapter in the meantime.**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thanks! I certainly hope they have a good future. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **TheBookishSoul: Thank you!**

 **Oirasse: I couldn't think of any way it would come out on purpose either, so when I wanted to write a companion piece to Lucien finding out, this was born :) Thank you so much for reviewing!**

 **franklyherondale: I found it surprisingly fun to write the awkwardness, because that's just a situation that Feyre literally does not know how to handle. I never really thought to myself where Rhys was, but flying over Velaris is definitely the best guess. And I couldn't imagine Rhys getting drunk and somehow managing to only tell Helion, so the entire Inner Circle got a surprise too. :) Thanks for always reviewing such nice things!**

 **rowaelinfeyrhys: Thank you! I love exploring their different characters, and it's fun to try and experiment with how they'd react to different situations. I'm glad you think they're in character :)**

 **This chapter was requested by Oirasse, and is where Feyre, Rhys, Mor, Elain, Nesta, Cassian, Azriel and Amren take a short holiday to the mountain cabin and see Feyre's paintings.**

* * *

 _If Walls Had Eyes_

"Hurry up, you two!" Cassian called back. "You can carry the stuff in later, but Nesta's trying to steal my seat!"

"It's not your seat if I got in first!" came the snapped reply. Rhys and Feyre shared a grin at the audible fire in the argument. "Maybe if you'd gotten here faster I wouldn't be sitting in it right now!"

"You're the one who dumped all the stuff you were meant to be carrying into the snow! I was just being a good, polite person and picking it up for you!"

"Do you know what 'polite' means?"

"I give it three weeks until they fuck," Mor said, her long strides overtaking Rhysand as he stopped to admire the view, and coming to stand next to Feyre. Her arms were full of clothes - considering that the cabin was enchanted to take care of it's occupants, the High Lady had genuinely no idea why they'd all brought so much _stuff_.

She snorted in response to Mor's comment. "They've already done it, I'm pretty sure." Mor raised an eyebrow. "If the sounds at night are anything to go by."

"I did _not_ need to know that," Rhys chimed in, coming up behind them. His honey skin was looking faintly green. "The only reason I'm at all interested in my brother's love life is to tease him. I don't need or want any details." He paused, then added. "Though I agree: the sounds at night could shake a mountain."

Azriel smirked. Amren shouldered past all four of them to stalk towards the cabin. "You Illyrians are disgusting." She paused before she entered the threshold, and sniffed the air. "Why does it smell so much like paint? I didn't think my old paints in the back draws would smell so- Oh." She shut up once she opened the door. " _Oh_."

Feyre, Mor and Rhys exchanged glances. When she looked back at Azriel, Feyre saw a shadow curl round his ear as he smiled at her innocently.

Elain, coming up behind them, stopped next to him and frowned. "What is it?"

Amren seemed to have recovered from her shock. "You'll have to see for yourself." She made to step in further, but first addressed Feyre briefly: "You're a good painter, girl."

"Yeah, Feyre's a great painter," Elain agreed, brows still creased. She shouldered her bag, and went to stand near Amren. "But what does that have to do with- Ah."

Feyre looked at Rhys, shrugged, and went inside as well. She dumped her stuff on the end in one of the rooms, walking back into the main room just in time to hear Nesta, inspecting the eyes on the wall, say, "Rhysand's eyes aren't here."

"No," Feyre said simply. "They're not."

"A travesty I'm sure Feyre darling will hasten to correct immediately," her husband chimed in. "No wall is complete without my entire likeness on it, in fact."

"I'm afraid that's not a wall, dearest cousin - that's a mirror." Mor pointed down the corridor. "And your likeness is there, see?"

Rhys looked at the stick figures of the puffed up self-important Illyrian's daubed there, and chuckled. "I did not notice those paintings when I was last here. They would probably have ruined the mood quite a bit."

"What do you mean? They _are_ the mood," Feyre said sweetly. "Although I can imagine you didn't notice them before - you were a _touch_ distracted."

 _Cruel, beautiful thing_ , he purred into her mind.

"When did you paint these?" Elain asked, examining the place at the window where silver frost melted into fresh spring saplings. "They're beautiful."

"Shortly after Rhysand fucked up, and shortly before he fucked her," Mor said baldly. Her cousin frowned at her.

"You make it sound so crude." She shrugged; he sighed. "In the days she stayed here before we mated. I mean, she had to do _something_ to distract her from thinking about my beautiful face." He gave her a suggestive wink, but Feyre was still looking at Elain.

Her sister was fidgeting nervously, playing with her fingers as she looked around. She studied the eyes on the wall closely, opened and closed her mouth several times, then said, "Why aren't we up there?"

 _We_. Nesta and Elain. The collective pair.

Feyre chose her words carefully. "This was - before Hybern." Her sister's gaze didn't waver. "I didn't think you would want to be up there. Want to belong. . . here."

"Then why aren't you up there?" Nesta asked. She still hadn't vacated Cassian's seat, the armchair modified for Illyrian wings that faced the fireplace. Feyre swallowed. A pleading look at Mor had the blonde explaining:

"Well, originally it was only Amren's eyes up there." She looked to the High Fae in question, who snorted. "Something about her 'always watching'." Mor shrugged, and Amren looked pleased. "But when I came to visit - to check she wasn't dead and all that - I told her to paint the rest of us in." Mor's gaze found Feyre's. "So we could watch over her."

Elain's hands were fluttering - they smoothed down the fabric of her dress, rubbed her hair between her fingertips, played across the textured paint at the windowsill. Then she turned to Feyre and asked, "Where do you keep the paints?"

Feyre jerked her head up, shocked, but said smoothly, "In the cabinet in the next room, second draw from the bottom." Elain nodded, and followed the directions.

When she came back, she was carrying a paintbrush, with three cans of paint: blue, white and black. She started to dip the brush into the blue, and swirled it on the wall to the left of the silver eyes depicted there.

Catching on to what she was doing, Feyre shared a look with Nesta. They both slipped through the door into the room themselves, and carried out the yellow and red and more brushes. Not a word was exchanged before they commenced painting.

At some point, the rest of the Inner Circle stopped staring and went about their own tasks. But while Feyre quickly finished up Elain's eyes, just to the left of where her sister was painting her own, she painted Nesta's as well. Her eldest sister painted Rhysand's, and Feyre wondered if that was a message in itself - Nesta's apology for her harsh initial judgement of him. She wondered if this was her way of showing acceptance.

By the time they were finished, eight pairs of eyes stared at them from out of the plaster. And to Feyre, most looked faintly crinkled, like the unpainted faces were smiling at her.

There was still space on either side of the row of eyes for a few more pairs. Amren eyed the space to the right of hers for a moment, then announced, "Varian can paint his own." Azriel chuckled.

Rhys came up behind Feyre, smiling at the violet eyes there. "Did you do mine?"

She shook her head. "No," she murmured. "Nesta did."

She could imagine him raising his eyebrows. "They're the exact shade of purple. I hadn't realised she'd paid so much attention to my appearance."

"I hadn't realised you paid so much attention to your reflection that you could recognise the exact shade of purple when confronted with it," she replied coyly. He laughed.

"What can I say? I can appreciate beauty when I see it."

"And I can appreciate narcissism when I see it."

"Cruel thing."

His arms came around her, cutting off her laugh, and she leaned into his warmth. Mor made a gagging noise and looked away. A smile lit her lips as, for a moment, she felt completely at peace.


	13. Caught on Thorns and Roses

**Sorry it took so long to update. I genuinely have no excuse.**

 **Thanks to Guest (1), Guest (2), tscott21, rowaelinfeyrhys and wavingthroughawindow for reviewing!**

 **Guest (1): Thank you so much! You made me smile so much.**

 **Guest (2): Thank you! And technically, it fits with canon, so for all we know it could be ;)**

 **tscott21: Thank you! I always find it difficult writing humour, so I'm glad you liked it. :)**

 **rowaelinfeyrhys: Thank you so much! I was worried about writing their interactions and banter, since it's very unique and quite different to the way I and my friends interact, so I'm glad to know I pulled it off!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thanks! I love your reviews, they're always so kind. And you're in luck, because I was already planning on writing this anyway, so here's Elain thinking about Azriel and Lucien for you! Thanks for being such a supportive reviewer!**

 **This one is part an original idea I had a few months ago, and part request from wavingthroughawindow, and is basically where Lucien takes Elain to see the tulip fields on the continent whilst he visits Queen Vassa, since Elain's father died before he could take her there himself. It's more introspection than plot, to be honest.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own A Court of Thorns and Roses; it belongs to Sarah J Maas.**

 _Caught on Thorns and Roses_

Elain might have inner conflict regarding her feelings towards her mate, but that didn't mean she was going to turn down a chance like _this_.

So here she was.

When Feyre had first told her, tentatively, that Lucien had asked her to pass on the message that he'd seen fields upon fields on tulips bulbs whilst he was on the continent looking for Queen Vassa, she hadn't quite understood what she was trying to tell her. It was only when Feyre, who hated subterfuge when it involved her family, sat her down and said Lucien had pretty much asked her on a date to the continent, but was a little tied up and couldn't ask her himself.

She wasn't sure how much she believed that excuse. She wasn't sure why she'd even said yes.

Was it the tether in her chest that yanked painfully every time she considered turning him down, or being with someone else? She hoped not. Because apparently that particular bond was here, and here to stay.

Was it the fact that he always looked (and felt, although she refused to admit that she paid attention to the mating bond at all, except when it was called for) so, so sad? And that there was a female buried somewhere deep down inside her that wanted to make him happy again?

She hated it. She'd rarely truly hated anything before - she was not her sisters - but she hated this. The way the bond and the instincts that came with it were tearing away her choice in the matter, and that she was being attacked by her own emotions for a choice she had every right to make in the first place.

She'd been wrestling with these tumultuous thoughts from the moment she took Lucien's arm and he winnowed them to Queen Vassa's palace. She'd been wrestling with them when unwanted jealousy flared, unbidden, in her chest as the mortal queen embraced him like an old friend.

But when they reached the tulip fields, those warring voices had gone silent.

She'd sucked in a sharp breath, and finally been able to ignore the glances the male sent her way.

Elain remembered her father returning from his first trip to the continent in nearly a decade, with small sacks of bulbs she didn't recognise stored on his ship. She'd accepted the present, and had privately wondered how they would turn out. She had no experience in growing them beforehand, so how she she know their ( _her_ ) garden had the right soil, enough moisture, enough sunlight?

When the stalks had shot up, she'd held her breath. They were oddly rigid, she'd seen, and oddly straight; she wondered how the flowers would look once they bloomed. Hope had soared in her chest.

She hadn't been disappointed.

They'd flowered, and it took all of a glance for them to immediately become her favourites. Ranging in all colours from a purple so dark it bordered black, to crimson to saffron to gold and burgundy and vermilion, her flower bed resembled nothing more than a slumbering pit of ashes and embers.

Her father had seen how much she'd loved them. "There are fields and fields and fields of them on the continent," he'd said to her. "I'll take you there as a treat someday."

The girl she'd been - that hopeful, naïve, innocent one that tried to diffuse her sister's arguments, that tried to dream of another life, a _better_ life - had taken the words to heart. She'd repeated them to Feyre, when she returned from Aunt Ripleigh's (no, Prythian, she'd been in Prythian, why couldn't she remember that?) and despite the uncertainty in her sister's voice, her heart had swollen with joy at the prospect of visiting such a beautiful place with her family.

 _We'll have fun, won't we?_

But her father was dead. Dead and gone and cremated. He would never take her to the continent.

Lucien would.

Perhaps it made her selfish, perhaps it made her ungrateful, perhaps it made her a horrible person but. . . Despite it all, she wished she could have gone with her sisters. People she knew and loved. Not Lucien.

Not that she didn't love Lucien, not that she _couldn't_ love Lucien, but. . . She wanted a choice. She wanted that freedom. She wanted. . .

No excuse would make the mating bond in her chest stop yanking painfully. She was hyper aware of his gaze suddenly on her, rather than the miles of tulips before them. She studiously ignored it.

Kneeling down, Elain caressed one tulip with her fingertips. Back over the sea, in that manor that had never really felt like home, she'd thought that her favourite colour was that of the rich, orange-red ones, like the base of a flame after you've stared at it for too long. She'd cut bouquets of them and placed them in various vases around the manor to liven it up a bit, and one time even made a crown out of flower heads and worn it for a week.

Now though, she felt her gaze drawn to the darker ones: such a rich burgundy it looked like velvet, indigo petals the colour of the night sky, a burnt umber like roasted chestnuts. The ones that looked like they were cast in shadow.

She missed Azriel.

If he was here, he would know what to say. He didn't say much, but he knew what to say, and the silence between them was always comfortable. Not awkward. Not crushing, like the silence here and now.

With Azriel, there were no expectations, no obligations, no bond in her chest dictating her every move and word. They were just. . . Them.

No past to be ashamed of. No future to be afraid of.

Gentle, but not coddling. Quiet, but not shy. Polite, but not formal. He even smiled at her and gave her Truth-Teller to protect at the end of the War. She'd heard from Cassian that he'd never let anyone else so much as touch it before that.

But finding that out. . . It hadn't scared her. It hadn't added on the pressure she would've expected, nor the embarrassment that he'd trusted her more than his High Lord, or Cassian, or Morrigan. She'd just been proud. Proud, that he did.

It would be so much easier, she thought, if she knew for sure that she didn't like Lucien. If she hated him, then she could simply reject the mating bond. Feyre had explained it to her; she could, if she really wanted to.

But, to an extent, she _liked_ Lucien. He was amusing and she genuinely enjoyed being around him sometimes. When they weren't crushed under the weights of the what ifs the mating bond provided.

But, but, but. She wasn't getting herself anywhere.

Maybe, if the mating bond had developed later, they might have a chance. Maybe, if they'd gotten to know each other first without all the stress of a war keeping them apart, it might have worked out. Maybe. . .

Maybes were just as useless as buts.

Everything was happening so fast. Where did she stand amongst all this?

"Do you like it?" Lucien was watching her carefully. He was an emissary, she knew; he could read faces and body language easily enough. But something told her she was as much a mystery to him as he was to her.

She did not have to decide now, she realised. Not amongst such a tumultuous time, not when nobody - _nobody_ \- knew up from down, let alone right from wrong. She was not obliged to decide at all.

 _Not yet_ , she told the mating bond in her chest, like it was a living thing and it could hear her. _If ever_.

Lucien was still studying her. She gave him a small smile, and nodded. "Yes," she said. "It's beautiful."


	14. Outsider

**Thanks to rowaelinfeyrhys, me (annieherondalelightwood), TheBookishSoul, franklyherondale, tscotf21 and wavingthroughawindow for reviewing!**

 **rowaelinfeyrhys: Thank you! I really enjoyed trying to fathom what she herself might think of all the drama surrounding her love life; I'm glad you thought it was realistic. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **me (annieherondalelightwood): Ranting is no problem! It's always nice hearing other people's opinions. Personally, I'm fairly neutral on who Elain should end up with, but I loved reading your review! I hope you get what you want, and Elriel becomes canon :)**

 **TheBookishSoul: Thank you so much! And that sounds like an interesting idea (I don't watch Gilmore Girls, sorry, I didn't get the reference) but I'm not quite sure what you mean. Is it like where there's a certain day of the year, an anniversary or something, that's too painful for Rhys to be around other people on, so he has to hide away, or is it just random, out-of-the-blue moments that he can't control? Thanks for your review! (And it doesn't sound stupid at all, I promise :) )**

 **franklyherondale: Thanks for your review! I'm glad you liked it :) To be honest, what you said wraps up my stance on Elain's love life perfectly. I like the idea of her with both of them - I think they'd both be good for her in their own way - but on the other hand, I don't want all mate pairs to end up together, or all the Archeron sisters to end up with Rhys and the bat boys, as you said. I agree, both of them wrap up too neatly. Why can't Elain just be a strong woman on her own, right?**

 **tscott21: Thank you so much! I didn't want to pick a side in the whole Elriel/Elucien debate, and I feel like at this point Elain has no idea what she wants herself, so I'm glad you thought she was in character!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you! And it's no problem - I really liked writing your oneshot, even if the whole plot idea I had went out the window and was reduced to pure introspection. I love character studies, and it was very interesting to write. Thank you for such a wonderful review, and such a good idea! :)**

 **This oneshot is an idea of my own that I had, and it's where Feyre goes back to visit her old village after the War. Of course, I completely made up the mercenary's name for this oneshot, and I'm sorry if I got any details about her wrong - I don't have access to my copy of ACOTAR at the moment, so I couldn't check. I hope you enjoy it!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own ACOTAR.  
**

* * *

 _Outsider_

One thing I hadn't considered in my decision to revisit my old village was the fact it no longer existed.

I had grilled everything else in my mind.

Potential hostility towards the High Fae, even if they already knew me? I'd decided what to do.

Possibility of no one wanting to talk to me? I was ready.

The thought that the place would be completely razed to the ground, with only a few makeshift tents and cobbled together houses standing around where the village square had once been?

I hadn't expected that.

I should have, I knew. I _should have_. When we'd fought the final battle of the War, I'd _known_ that Hybern's soldiers had destroyed every human settlement they encountered, despite - and probable spurred on in anger by - the fact that most of them were deserted. The humans had been moved to protected areas like Adriata and Lord Nolan's manor.

I hadn't let myself wonder until now whether the people I'd known - Isaac Gardner, Tomas Mandray, the stall owners I used to sell meat to - were still alive. Clare Beddor certainly wasn't.

No matter what Rhys told himself, that was my fault. Mine.

The faces of the people I'd encountered and spoken to but never really known appeared in doorways. A hush fell over the makeshift streets I passed through and didn't lift until I was out of human earshot. The hysterical chatter that rose and fell in my absence ground against my Fae ears; I felt like more of an outsider than ever before.

But then, hadn't I always been an outsider? Hadn't I always lived on the outskirts of the village, coming in only on market days, and refused to interact with anyone who didn't approach me first?

Hadn't I always been so standoffish and lonely that no one had wanted to bother to know the lean, flinty-eyed teenager who stalked around with the aura of one twice her age?

I didn't know why I hadn't expected this. I cursed myself for a fool.

Velaris - I missed Velaris.

I turned a corner, into where the centre of this makeshift village used to be, and got a shock.

The mercenary - the one to whom I'd sold the wolf pelt, the one who'd told me she'd fought and survived and been scarred by a martax long before I knew the true magnitude of that, who'd accompanied my sister to the wall for (reportedly) little to no payment with a grim determination that only came from a blatant mistrust of faeries, and a commendable amount of loyalty to her fellow humans - was here.

Why she was here, I couldn't fathom at first. The war was over. There was no work left.

Then I cursed myself for a fool. I supposed living in luxury hadn't just made me go soft - it had irrevocably changed my thought processes. Of course I knew why she was here.

The Wall had only just fallen; the faeries and humans were only just beginning to move within each other's borders. Of course in a village like this, presided over by one such as Lord Nolan, there would be mercenaries for hire to protect the humans from ill-meaning Fae.

She'd gained several new scars since I last saw her - one even bisected her right eyebrow and gave her mouth a harsh twist. I wondered whether she'd fought in the War, whose side she'd fought for; our human country - her human country? - had no government to speak of, besides the local lords.

Her eyes moved to me finally, and her hard face grew harder as those dark eyes took in the pointed ears, the flawless (unnatural) grace, and the other differences in High Fae and human physique. "What do you want, faerie?" she snapped even as her eyes widened, roving over my unique facial features - the ones that still resembled my human self - and her mouth parted in a gape.

"Just to talk to you," I said quietly. I didn't need to say it any louder; the hushed silence that followed in my wake amplified the words to near deafening volumes, and I was sure that everyone man, woman and child in the proximity heard them.

She visibly swallowed, but as she straightened her back, I saw no fear in her face. None at all. "Run into a little trouble since I last saw you, girl, did you?" she asked, something eerily akin to sympathy in her voice. I took a moment to ponder what that might tell me, but I ultimately dismissed it. It didn't matter.

It wasn't a question that demanded an answer, more one that suggested one without any real hope for getting what it wanted. I gave her what she wanted without outright telling her: "I'm Feyre Archeron."

I knew how famous my name had become. I knew what that single sentence meant.

 _I'm the girl - human woman, High Fae female - everyone's been talking about_ , was what I didn't say out loud. _I'm the woman - for I will always be human at heart - who loved and fought and died and came back for this world, and who renegotiated the Treaty, who rules over a_ _court far to the north, who is even now more legend than leader, myth than martyr, in most parts of the world_.

 _I'm Feyre Cursebreaker, Feyre Cauldron-Blessed, High Lady of the Night Court._

 _But I am still a human in all the ways that count._

It was remarkable, I reflected, how two women such as ourselves who knew each other so briefly, so little, could still say so few words and still have our precise meaning conveyed. Perhaps it stood testament to the evil of the world - or the good.

"I'm Felicity Mercy-Harliss," she said in reply.

I didn't say anything, but very carefully imprinted the name to memory, running my eyes over the mercenary to fit it with my idea with her. Solidifying in my mind how a woman of such strength managed to fit a name that implied delicacy as much as "Felicity" did so well. My improved eyesight allowed me to notice things I hadn't seen when I first saw her: the bags under her eyes, the premature wrinkles at her temple, the threads of grey in her hair.

When I'd first met this woman, she'd been a legend, someone who'd faced the monsters beyond the wall and walked away - a heroine straight out of a myth. I'd been young, and she'd been an idol of sorts, a fascination, a childlike dream of wonder I was too deeply mired in poverty and loneliness to fully appreciate the scope of.

Now. . . I _was_ that legend. But I wasn't anything special. I was just. . . me.

 _You know that's not true,_ Rhys whispered reassuringly in my mind. I ignored him, and continued to stare.

She looked as tired as I had - as lonely as I had. As desperate, too. It made me wonder: did she have a family? Were there people who fretted over her safety as she fought faeries and humans alike for her employers, the way Rhys and the Inner Circle did for me?

Were legends just people who'd been forced to survive day by day, as I had?

"Why are you here?" Felicity asked finally. She fidgeted, apparently uncomfortable with the attention. It baffled me to think that this woman - this pillar of strength and justice - could be intimidated by me.

I looked around before answering. Isaac Hale was watching us out of one of the cabins, the pale face of his new wife - not new; they'd been married over two years now, I reminded myself - hovering above his shoulder. I raised my hand to wave to them, my wedding ring glinting in the light. I saw their eyes drawn to it.

I felt nothing at what they may or may not deduce from the sight of the ring - not jealousy, not satisfaction, not regret. Nothing.

I nodded at the both of them, and wished them well.

I turned back to the mercenary. "I had to see," I started slowly, then with more honesty. "I had to see for myself."

Felicity's brow furrowed. "See what?"

Looking around me, I decided to leave. There was nothing for me here; no memories, no redemption, nothing. Everything and everyone I'd known had been burned away to ash during the War; new, unfamiliar structures had been erected in its place. And one day, this would all be gone too. That was the way of humans: we - _they_ \- built and broke and destroyed. We were never meant to be permanent.

I had no place here anymore. I didn't know them; they didn't know me.

I gave Felicity a tired smile. "That life goes on."


	15. Braids & Bees & Babies

**Thanks to wavingthroughawindow, franklyherondale, rowaelinfeyrhys, tscott21, Guest, and TheBookishSoul for reviewing!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you! I agree - she's such a wonderful person, that she'd definitely want to go back at some point. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **franklyherondale: Thank you so much! The whole way that Feyre's transition into Fae wasn't covered in much detail (it was covered, just not in the sort of detail I like going into things with) in the canon, I took it upon myself to compare how her relationships with her old "friends" would have changed. And I'm glad my update made you smile - your reviews always do the same for me! :)**

 **rowaelinfeyrhys: I'm glad you liked it! The mercenary probably won't become relevant again in the canon, but I felt like she had such a big impact on Feyre at the start of ACOTAR that if I was writing about Feyre's transition to Fae then I had to include her. That, and I'm shamelessly curious to know more about her. Thanks for your review!**

 **tscott21: Thank you! I'm glad you liked it - I felt like Isaac Hale and the mercenary deserved a bigger part than they got, so I decided to include them. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **Guest: Thank you so much! Your review really made me smile :)**

 **TheBookishSoul: Thank you! I took both of your suggestions, and sort of melded them together into one chapter, so I hope you like it!**

 **This chapter was requested by TheBookishSoul, and is a combination of two requests. Also, the bees in this can be blamed on a question that came up in my maths homework a few weeks ago, about the number of bees in a hive decreasing exponentially, and I wouldn't have paid it any attention if the name used for the beekeeper wasn't "Rhys". So, it stuck in my mind, and here it is being used over a month later. I hope you like it!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the ACOTAR series.**

* * *

 _Braids & Bees & Babies_

Feyre winced as she shifted positions on the sofa and the baby delivered another sharp kick to her innards. At this rate, her internal organs would be liquefied by the time the due date came, some three and a half months in the future.

 _Are you okay?_ came through the mating bond, quietly, as though Rhys were afraid to wake the unborn boy.

(It had been an ongoing debate between the two of them whether it would be a girl or a boy. Feyre insisted boy, because "motherly intuition trumps all, Rhysand!", whereas her husband wasn't so sure. If Elain's powers as a seer were giving her any insight to how it would play out, she was keeping tight lipped about it.)

 _Fine_ , she broadcasted back. _How are_ you _? I didn't see you yesterday._

"I was," said a voice behind her. She didn't have to turn to know it was her husband, "otherwise occupied."

She did twist round at that. "What does _that_ mean?" she asked, slightly coyly, with enough pressure to show her curiosity, but also to show that she wouldn't push. She fiddled with the half-finished plait she'd been weaving her hair into, and huffed a faint sound of annoyance when the hairs slipped out and hang loose again.

"Here." Rhys came up to sit next to her. For a moment, Feyre allowed herself to lean into him, to close her eyes and savour his warmth, steady hands, and the faint scent that was just so _Rhys_ , then she sat up again, and turned her back to her husband to give him better access to the wayward brown locks on her head.

Her husband took them in hand, and skilfully separated them into individual sections as he prepared to braid them himself. He got to work on the first one, which arched over the front of her head and encompassed most of the strands that would otherwise cover her face. She smiled faintly at the light, familiar touch.

He'd gotten into the habit of doing this shortly after the War had ended - he claimed that it soothed him to do something so easy and methodical (though she wouldn't call the complex hairstyles he was capable of pulling off _easy_ ), especially when it was with her. Especially if it helped her.

Feyre had asked, once, when he'd learned to be so skilled at it when his own hair was so short. He'd adopted a wistful expression and admitted it was something he'd once done for his little sister, before she died, as she'd been "absolutely shit" at doing her own hair and their mother wasn't always on hand to help. He'd learned to step in and save the day.

Feyre was glad that it still brought him joy, even so long after her death. He deserved that - deserved to have something he'd loved remain lovable, even when the person who'd taught him to love it was long gone.

By the time he'd started on the second plait - one encircling her left temple - he still hadn't answered her inquiry. But she didn't push, partly because she'd wordlessly promised not to, and partly because she could sense he was thinking about it, was building up to voicing it out loud.

"It was the five hundred and fiftieth anniversary of her death, yesterday," he admitted quietly. "I don't get like this every year - you know I don't - but every time I realise it's been another fifty years without her. . . It hurts a little more. She was only fifty years old herself when she died," he added quietly. "I've lived eleven times as long without her as I did with her, but it still hurts so much. I couldn't- I had to be on my own yesterday. Well, with them. They miss her too."

"They?" Feyre coaxed gently.

"The bees," he said. For a moment, if the moment hadn't been so sombre, Feyre would have felt the urge to laugh at such a bizarre statement. "She- My sister kept bees, when she was still alive," he explained. "I'm fairly sure they were magical in some way - they certainly weren't normal bees - and they lived for years, even after her death. I sent them to be looked after by some nice farmers in the mountains after she died; I didn't know the first thing about taking care of them, and I didn't have the time, either. But they didn't deserve to die, and she'd loved them so much. . ."

"I understand." And she did.

"I visit them, sometimes. I'm pretty sure most of those that she looked after personally are long dead by now - magical longevity or not, they aren't immortal - but you can tell that their offspring can sense something's wrong just as well as the original ones could. We all miss her. Yesterday. . . I had to visit. Had to be in a place where her legacy still lives on."

Feyre waited for him to finish the second plait, and before he could reach for the remaining hair, she twisted round to place a hand on his shoulder. "Do Mor and the others know about them?"

He nodded mutely. "Mor helped me transport them out of Velaris after I'd found some farmers that would take them."

"Well, why don't you invite them to see how they're thriving? Maybe if you grieve as a group, it will make it easier. And I have to say," she continued, eyes flashing mischievously. "Of all the things I've learned about you since you first crashed my wedding, this is hardly one of the most surprising. But I have to ask: High Lords and bees?" She shook her head, and laughed softly. "How do you have the _time_?"

Rhys recognised it for the attempt at lightening the atmosphere it was, and chuckled to himself. He reached for the loose sheets of hair still hanging over her face, and she turned her head to give him better access to braid it. "I don't - that's the whole issue. Although, now I have a wonderful High Lady to share and divide my duties with, maybe I _will_ have the time. What do you say," he rested his chin on her shoulder, and she felt him grin against her ear, "that we look after our own colony?"

"I think," she began, then squealed as he started to tickle her neck. She squirmed away, "that we would accidentally kill them all. Kids," she nodded to her swollen belly, "is one thing; small winged insects obsessed with honey is quite another. And I think we'll have our hands full with this one," she patted her stomach, "anyway."

Rhys finished up the third and final plait, and kissed his mate on the forehead when she turned to face him. "Always so practical," he said fondly. "Very well, here's to a kid with a childhood devoid of bee stings." He lifted an invisible glass, and she laughed.

"Here's to a boy with parents who love him enough not to make him tend to a bunch of ghastly little bugs as part of his chores," she replied, holding up her own fake glass. When she dropped her hand, she added, "Besides, we both know that with you in charge, Rhysand, the population of the hive would decrease _exponentially_."

He scoffed, and faked offence. "Me? It would not!"

She snorted. "It _so_ would."


	16. Angels To Die

**Thanks to Kittykat1845, tscott21, TheBookishSoul, franklyherondale, rowaelinfeyrhys, and wavingthroughawindow for reviewing!**

 **Kittykat1845: THANK YOU! Your review absolutely made my day :)**

 **tscott21: Thank you so much! It was always in the back of my mind to use the problem as a basis for a fanfic, just as an inside joke between me and my friends, but I saw a way to include it, and did! Thanks for your kind words!**

 **TheBookishSoul: Thank you! I'm so, so, so glad you liked it :)**

 **franklyherondale: Thank you! Improving my writing style is half the reason I write fanfic, so I'm so glad you like it! And I definitely agree, Feysand are such a good couple.**

 **rowaelinfeyrhys: Thank you! I'm glad you liked it!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you! I love that you seem to enjoy reading them as much as I love writing them. And I won't either, although writing this oneshot certainly didn't make solving the problem any easier ;)**

 **This oneshot was an idea I had on my own, and is an Elriel one very, very heavily based off the song The A Team by Ed Sheeran. It'll probably be the second last chapter in this particular fic, so I hope you've enjoyed them so far!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the ACOTAR series; it belongs to Sarah J. Maas.**

* * *

 _Angels To Die_

Azriel didn't need the shadows to tell him Elain was cold.

She was shivering hard when they first entered the Illyrian camp - had been half the flight there. Once they cleared the Illyrian Steppes, all warmth had been leeched from the air by the same freak weather incident that had been terrorising the area in recent days. When he set her down, and went to greet the camp's lord, she watched him go, lips white and face pale. Her clothes, made of the flimsy fabric and cinched at the elbows and ankles as was the traditional fashion of Velaris, were far from substantial in this weather.

They technically shouldn't even be here - a point reflected by the lord's surprise when he greeted Azriel, and not Rhys or Cassian. He had never been to this particular camp, but it didn't matter - the High Lord's Shadowsinger was infamous, and easy to recognise by the shadows curling at his back. He was afforded instant wariness and respect wherever he went because of it.

But he shouldn't have come here anyway. Rhys knew it was painful for him, and usually his brother respected that. But with Rhys and Feyre occupied at the Court of Nightmares, Mor with them, and Cassian taking the time to quell a minor rebellion from the remaining scraps of Hybern's army, Az remained the only one left to attend this prescheduled meeting with the Illyrian lord.

It made it better that Elain had decided - _insisted_ \- on coming with him, but not _good_.

He made sure to get the greetings out of the way quickly, and lead Elain to the cabin that the lord always kept available for the High Lord (or his ambassadors) to use during his stay. He and Elain would be sharing it in Rhys's absence. It was warmer there, and it might bring the colour back into her cheeks.

It had started to snow by the time they stepped inside, and despite her evident chill, Elain insisted on stopping to catch a few snowflakes in her mouth before heading in.

Azriel said little as he waved a hand at the sofa for Elain to take a seat, while he bumbled to the kitchen to fix them both up hot drinks. It didn't take long, and soon enough they were both sitting inside, sharing a blanket, holding the mugs of honey-coloured liquid in their hands.

Elain took a sip, and wrinkled her nose. Then she took another sip and the expression cleared. It was sour, she said, but in a nice way.

He smiled at her in response, and didn't say anything.

.

.

.

They met with the camp lord officially a little while later, Elain bundled in all the clothes she'd brought and still shivering. The sun had set by then, and although the day was well at an end, the lord still seemed insistent on prolonging the cursory discussion for much longer than necessary. For the entire time, Elain said nothing, and Azriel said little - their combined silence clearly unnerved the lord, who sought to fill it with his own reedy voice.

Azriel didn't miss how the warriors whose company he kept seemed to leer at Elain, until she met their greedy gazes head on. Something in the air jumped, like a cast spell, and suddenly everyone around the table seemed hyperaware that this was a creature of the Cauldron they were in the presence of, one with unimaginable (but highly speculated) power.

The negotiations were quickly brought to an end.

.

.

.

Elain was quiet again that evening, except to voice the fact that she felt uncomfortable staying in a house she didn't own, because if she broke something she would have to pay for it, the way she'd grown used to in her years of poverty, and then where would she be?

Azriel pointed out that she was not in poverty anymore, and she had the money to pay for it, to which Elain smiled sadly, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, and said that old habits die hard. Not to mention that fact that her money was her sister's, and she did not want to be reliant on Feyre anymore - it wasn't fair on either of them.

After their brief conversation, Elain went back to her daydreams. Azriel didn't mind, although the silence was odd, after being in Cassian's company for so long. He knew that silence was a coping mechanism Elain had adopted when she was eighteen; in a small hovel with her two fiery sisters, saying nothing inspired no offence, and quickly reduced the number of fights that broke out due to frayed nerves and hungry bellies and empty eyes.

He knew - she'd told him herself.

All was silent until later that night, when he woke up via a stray shadow tugging quietly but consistently on a thread of his consciousness. Having absolute trust in his abilities, he let himself wake immediately, body tense and ready to fight should the danger prove imminent.

There was none. His room was bathed in cold moonlight, and all was silent still, save for the wing beats of a night time predator, and the stifled sounds of sobbing.

He rose from his bed and, trying not to run, made his way slowly through the living quarters of the cabin, then the kitchen, then ducked into Elain's room. Her breathing hitched when she noticed him, and she tried to wipe away her tears, but he gently sat on the bed next to her. The light of the moon and the listening stars streamed through the window and cast their shadows in stark relief against the wall.

With his wings arched above them, and her hunched position, the tableaux resembled something from a fairy tale. The maiden and the monster she called friend.

She started to cry again, and he could do nothing but sit there and hold her hand. He knows nightmares well, and how they ride through a dream like a storm through the clear sky. He knew what she would likely be dreaming about, too.

He tried to help, murmuring that the worst things in life come free to them, and that they're _all_ under the upper hand, and he knew that it helped, just not in any ways he could see.

Finally, he asked her if she wanted to go outside, although it was inadvisable given the cold, remembering how much it had helped Feyre when she first came. One of her fears had been claustrophobia; Elain had been traumatised by the Cauldron. It might be similar enough to help.

But she refused. She didn't want to go outside tonight.

He wondered briefly if he should send for Lucien, if that would help, if mating bonds would help her heal. But he dismissed the thought almost instantly, though why, exactly, he couldn't say - whether it was out of some sort of conviction his subconscious had picked up, something his shadows were telling him, or (Cauldron forbid it) a flicker of jealousy.

Eventually, Elain said that they should just try to sleep.

Neither of them did.

.

.

.

The next morning, they were preparing to fly back to Velaris, when they were informed that the rapid temperature drop meant it was officially too dangerous for Illyrians to fly in these sort of temperatures. Good males had been know to perish in warmer ones.

It meant they would be stranded in the camp until the temperature rose again.

Azriel and Elain shared a glance that cemented the truth of the tumult of conflict they were surely both feeling. But, as per usual, they said nothing.

.

.

.

Azriel knew it wasn't healthy for Elain to stay inside all day and dwell on her nightmare, so he proposed a leisurely walk to some nearby hot springs, which were reportedly some of the most beautiful in the Illyrian Steppes.

Furthermore, they might finally warm Elain up enough to regain the rose-cheeked glow she'd bore in Velaris, but he didn't voice that particular hope.

She agreed, and brought all sorts of cold and wet weather gear along - gloves and raincoats and boots she'd dug up in the old, moth-eaten wardrobe in the cabin. At first it was laughable, but it quickly became necessary as the higher they climbed, the harsher the wind became, and the colder the temperature was. At one point, they were scaling a small stream of skree that had blocked the path, when she slipped and the finger of her gloves ripped, along with her skin. A few bright droplets of blood fell against the snow, like late blooming scarlet flowers.

They reached the spring shortly after that, and after stripping her hand of the glove and dunking it into the small, natural pool there, Elain sighed. Almost immediately she'd stripped down to her undergarments and dived in.

Azriel supposed the pool was large enough for it to not remind her of her harrowing moments (minutes, hours, years? His shadows wouldn't tell him) in the Cauldron.

She didn't seem to know how to swim, if the half-hearted attempts at a stroke were anything to go by, but the pool was shallow enough for her to stand in, and she floated on her back in the heat. Her face soon flushed red, limp strands of hair floating about her head, and again Azriel thought that she looked like something out of a fairy tale.

They spent a few blissful hours there before they had to start the trek back down the mountain. By the time they got back to the cabin, Elain's hair and clothes were all but dry.

.

.

.

That night there was a small shriek and a cling, and Azriel hurried out of his bedroom to find Elain scrabbling all over the floor searching for the coins that had fallen out of her pocket. He helped her track them down, each and every one of them, refusing to listen to her profuse apologies as he did.

He supposed she expected him to be surprised at the way she was so possessive over every last copper, but he wasn't. He knew she must have been good as hoarding and saving money - how else could she have afforded the gifts, the set of paints, Feyre had mentioned once?

She tried to thank him, voice hoarse, and he responded by making her something to drink to soothe her throat. She looked so tired, he was half-expecting it when she fell asleep before he'd finished.

.

.

.

She thanked him again the following morning, when she found the now-cold mug on the table beside her. Her shy smile could have lit the darkest basement he'd ever been trapped in.

Indeed, it certainly seemed to have warmed the weather; they flew home that day, and Azriel felt none of the usual regret and pain that came from leaving his old home and hell behind.


	17. Enough

**Thanks to Fire Breathing Queen, Kittycat1845, franklyherondale, tscott21, wavingthroughawindow, rowaelinfeyrhys, and Oirasse for reviewing!**

 **Fire Breathing Queen: THANK SO YOU MUCH! It makes me so happy to know that it cheered you up! I'm glad you liked it!**

 **Kittykat1845: Thank you! Your review made me smile so much - writing emotions was something I decided to focus on a lot, since I found I'd struggled with it before writing fanfic, so it's wonderful to know I've improved! I hope you like this one!**

 **franklyherondale: Thank you! To be honest, the lack of dialogue sprang from the fact that I have no grasp on the way Azriel talks, so it was a bit of a cop out on my part, but it had the effect I wanted :) And I like Elucien as well - I'm pretty torn between the two - but I decided Elriel deserves some love as well. Thanks for making my day with your review!**

 **tscott21: Thank you so much! I'm so glad you liked it!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: I'm glad you liked it! Elain's not my favourite character either, but I love all of the Inner Circle so much that I decided to write one with her. And I'm so happy it helped you feel better, and I hope you like this last one. I'm glad you've liked them so far :)** **As for the fic request, I _am_ interested in writing a Malide fic, though not any of the others, because I still sort of ship them despite the fact that I love Elorcan as well. I think I'd only write them in a Modern AU though; I ship a lot of things with the TOG characters, but to save my heart unnecessarily feels I managed to come to an agreement to myself that in the canon universe, I ship the canon pairings, while in a Modern AU, anything's fair game. So there might be a Malide oneshot or so in the future, but otherwise, probably not.**

 **rowaelinfeyrhys: Thank you! I tried not to make it forced - it always makes things so much harder to ship - so I'm glad you think I succeeded!**

 **Oirasse: Thank you! I'm glad you thought their banter was true to character - it always annoys me when characters act OOC. And thank you for giving me such a wonderful request to begin with!**

 **I'm sorry to say that this will be the last oneshot in this series. It was requested by snoopykid (aaaaaaaages ago - sorry for the wait!) and is a continuation of Feyre and Nesta's conversation in the library in Velaris, where Nesta tells Feyre that she never knew she couldn't read, and Feyre asks Nesta why she's always pushed away everyone except Elain. I hope you liked this one, and if not, I hope you liked this series as a whole!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own A Court of Thorns and Roses - it belongs to Sarah J. Maas.**

* * *

 _Enough_

After the War, Nesta and I had forgiven and forgotten, and moved on. I think the near-loss of Elain to the Cauldron had shaken us both severely, and we'd learned to adapt to having each other in our lives again, and be more positive presences for each other than we were before.

But we'd never finished our conversation from the library - when I'd asked her why she pushed away everyone but Elain. I'd brought it up since, but it was like the openness of the moment had passed, and I couldn't get a peep out of her.

Not that I'd tried too hard. Nowadays I felt sick intruding on anything - minds or business - and if she didn't want to tell, then she didn't want to tell.

So I was incredibly surprised when she marched out onto the balcony where I sat painting, her arms full of what looked like children's books. "It wasn't right," she said, and dumped them onto the table next to me.

I was so shocked that my grip tightened on my paintbrush until it snapped. I started at the sudden pain in my palm, and hastened to wipe away the blood against my shirt. "What?" I asked belatedly, studying the smear the blood had left. I hoped it wouldn't stain.

"I said," Nesta repeated, voice hard and the slightest bit indignant, "it wasn't _right_."

"What wasn't?" I was still slightly distracted by the stinging in my hand, but when I looked up to see the books she'd dumped on the table, I realised. . . I recognised them.

I reached out to pick one up, injury forgotten. The title emblazoned across the front read _The Little Archer_ \- it was a picture book I'd loved as a child, before our mother died, about a princess, the youngest of three, who ran away to live in a cabin in the woods and ride her horse through the undergrowth firing arrows into the sunset.

My mother had been less than thrilled at my choice of entertainment, but it wasn't like she was around much to stop it, anyway.

"What's this?" My voice may have been a little hoarse.

Nesta barely blinked. "Your old books - from back when you were just beginning to read." A pause. "I dug them up for you."

I wasn't breathing - I _couldn't_ breathe, because I was running my fingers over the smooth paper pages of _The Little Archer_ and there was the splash of crimson paint I'd daubed on there when it hit me that the deer the princess had shot down wasn't bleeding, despite being dead, and that wasn't right so I'd painted it in, because _fuck_ my mother's "delicate sensibilities", this was _how it was supposed to be_ -

My mouth quirked. I'd been such a rebellious child; it's no wonder my mother despaired for what to do with me.

(Well, not my mother. The nursemaids. But that was a whole other brand of childhood trauma that I was not going to go into at this moment.)

I brushed a fingertip against the name _Feyre_ scrawled in a child's scrawl on the inside of the cover, the _E_ s written backwards, the _Y_ wrongly capitalised. I remembered my mother coaching me through writing it, in one of those rare moments she was home, and how she'd been so uncharacteristically patient, so _loving_.

In later years, that memory of her kindness was both a blessing when I forgot why I'd promised to protect my family, and a curse when it proved just how much of a monster I was for hating her.

I blinked sharply against the sudden pinprick of tears, and wiped my eyes looked up at my sister. I would _not_ _cry_ , Cauldron damn it. "How?" _How is this possible? How did you find them? How did you keep it a secret for so long?_

Nesta seemed to hesitate then. It was a cold morning, and her cheeks were pink, her sigh of resignation a cloud of crystals on the air as she said, "I kept them. When the debtors came to document and confiscate all our things, I saw the books, and I just snapped. You and Elain- You were- You were terrified. And I remembered how when Mother had died, and she'd asked _you_ , all of eight years old, to protect us, and you were so young and so scared, and- I snapped.

"I don't think I did it out of love," she said quietly. The wind was cold against my wet cheeks - I was crying? My eyes certainly burned. "I don't want you to get a false impression with that - I did not do it out of love. I am no heroine for doing it. It was like in that moment, you were crying and terrified, it hit me that _this_ was the person in the household that Mother had deemed more likely to look after us all than me." She choked on her words. "That she had more faith in a blubbering little girl than her oldest daughter, who'd _never_ defied her, _never_ disappointed her. And I snapped.

"I grabbed the books, and hid them away. I don't know why I grabbed _your_ books - maybe it was because they were so much more personalised than mine and Elain's, due to your uncouth habit of _scribbling_." Her lips formed a sneer around the word. "I grabbed them, and hid them, and when the debtors came up they were none the wiser.

"I didn't do it because they meant so much to you," Nesta reiterated firmly, like she wasn't sure I had realised that. "It was all petty - spiteful. I wanted my own twisted form of revenge."

My lungs seemed to have constricted.

"And then we moved to the cottage, and the years passed, and the money began to dwindle. And I considered selling the books, just for a little extra money - I'd used everything I had to keep them in pristine condition, like that might make up for my horrid behaviour. But. . . They were my triumph. My only tangible reminder that the manor had not been a dream. And when you started providing for us, alone. . . The only thing that I had to cling to the fact that I was better than this. That I _would_ have helped, if it weren't for my need to push and test our father. That I was better than that snivelling little girl who'd somehow become our only breadwinner.

"You asked me once," she forced out, "why I pushed away everyone but Elain. And the truth? Elain was like me. She was just as ineffectual and posh and cultured, and she was the noblewoman of our family who needed to be protected from our peasant lifestyle at all costs.

"The villagers. . . I hated them because they were beneath me - should have been beneath me. But they weren't." There was a very faraway look in her eye now. "They weren't. They knew it, and I knew it too. But I couldn't accept it, couldn't accept that where we'd once mingled with the height of society, we were now scrounging for scraps with the pigs.

"I hated them too," she added. "I hated all our old, supposed ' _friends_ '. I hated them, and distrusted them, because _they were not there for us_. We lost our status, and they dropped us like dung, or burning coals."

I could hear the anger in her voice, the passion. And she was just getting started.

I listened mutely.

"And I hated the lords nearby, who wouldn't scrounge up a scrap of charity for those who needed it, even if. . . even if I wouldn't done so either, in their position. That was the revelation that hurt the most." She swallowed. "That if things had turned out differently, I would've been one of the people I've always hated. That perhaps I _am_ one of the people I've always hated." She glared at her hands; they were trembling. So were mine, I noticed.

"As for our father. . ." Nesta let out a bitter laugh. "He should have been the one to protect us, provide for us. I had faith in him to do so. And I watched, dying a little more day by day, as he stood by and did _nothing_." She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath; when she opened them again, they were clear. "But you didn't."

I wasn't sure I was breathing.

"You never have," my sister continued, her voice cracking. "You're always fighting, always fiery, always, always, always looking for a way out. You've never harboured any illusions about what's possible and what's not, but you will always fight the impossible. And sometimes - impossibly enough, as paradoxical as it sounds - you win.

"You're not the little girl whose tears drove me to action. You haven't been for a long time. And when it finally hit me, it _hurt_. It hurt that our mother - who'd spent even less time with you then she had with me, just to say - had seen something in you when you were so young, and thought _this is the fighter who will save us all_. That she looked at me, and knew I was not up to the task.

"It hurt that in the end, I needed you so desperately, and you didn't need me at all."

"I didn't need you?" Perhaps it was cruel, perhaps it was spiteful - oh, how spite _loved_ to dictate the arguments and fallouts of the Archerons - but I was angry. I was so, so angry. "Nesta, I need you so much. You and Elain. Those woods-" I cut myself off to breathe, "Those woods _killed_ me. I got increasingly desperate, increasingly paranoid, increasingly _alone_."

At some point I had grabbed Nesta's hands, and she had collapsed into the chair across from me. We were both crying.

"I was so, so _lonely_ ," I sobbed. "And I _needed_ my big sisters. I needed to not be alone." I was panting now. "So you're wrong Nesta: I did need you as much as you needed me. The difference is that _you were never there_."

Nesta's eyes were wide; she squeezed my hands gently. I bent my head over and let the tears fall, feeling some of them run into the juncture of my neck.

"After we left the cottage - after you were taken," my sister began slowly. I looked up at her. "I took the books with me. I didn't try to hide them, but Elain didn't comment on it. And the moment we got there, I shut them away in a chest and buried them in the back of the garden, where Elain had yet to plant things.

"I didn't hold any pretences anymore. You were gone, you were kidnapped, you had given everything for us to be saved. And instead of holding onto the past through relics that proved my bitterness more than my love, I decided that was it. I was getting my sister back." Her breathed hitched. "But I failed.

"I wasn't enough.

"I have _never_ been enough."

And then she was falling forwards, and I caught her and just held her close. Both our shoulders shook.

"I love you, Feyre," my sister whispered, and, if it was possible, I cried even harder at those words, those words I'd wanted to hear for so long that it ached. "And I'm so, so sorry I pushed you away."

We just held each other. And for now, that was enough.

* * *

 **Thanks to everyone for reading!**


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